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ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Azalea nml ('ai'iii ami Annie Laurie.

ANNIE LAURIE
AND AZALEA

BY

ELIA W. PEATTIE

Illustrations by
Joseph Pierre Nuyttens

The Reilly & Britton Co.
Chicago

Copyright, 19 13
by

The Reilly & Britton Co.

Annie Laurie and Azalea

Annie Laurie and Azalea

beg to be -presented to

Lorainey Catherine^ Elizabeth and Bernice

O

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Two AND One Make — How

Many? n

II Annie Laurie Pace 30

III Trial Without Jury 47

IV A Rainy Night 68

V The Summers 87

VI Sunday 100

VII The Signal 119

VIII The Mystery 128

IX The Disbrows 147

X Sam 167

XI Marching Orders 181

XII "The Doll Lady" 198

XIII The Long Red Road 217

XIV Hi's Houn' Dog 231

XV The Voice in the Mist 247

XVI Good for Evil 261

XVII Azalea's Party 28 1

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Azalea and Carin and Annie Laurie....

Frontispiece

Carin stood awaiting them, her hands
outstretched 64

Back and forth went her lantern, saying:
"All is well! All is well!" 122

"But you've come back, son, to face the

n

music 192

"Come in," she said in a strange voice 266

ANNIE LAURIE
AND AZALEA

CHAPTER I

TWO AND ONE MAKE — HOW MANY?

The long red clay road, winding down from
the cabin where the McBirneys lived on their
high shelf of Tennyson mountain, was frosted
delicately with white, and by the roadside the
curious frost flowers lifted their heads, as airy-
fine as fern. From the half-hidden cabins all
around the semicircle of mountains that skirted
the valley of Lee, shafts of smoke arose, showing
that the people were about the business of the
day. Straight, gray and shadowy these smoke-
shafts lifted through the lilac-tinted air; and
below in the little town, other shafts of smoke
ascended as if in friendly answer.

Azalea McBirney, in her dark riding skirt
and bright knitted cap and reefer, came running
from the cabin with the manner of a girl very
much behindhand.

12 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Ain't he there yet, Zalie?" a voice called
from the cabin. "Ain't Jim brought them ponies
around yet?"

"No, mother," Azalea answered over her
shoulder, starting toward the stable. "Maybe
the ponies have been naughty again. I'll go
see."

"You just stay where you be," commanded
James Stuart McBirney from the stable.
"You've got all your work done, ben't you?
Well, that's all you have to think about. This
here is my job and I mean to do it whatever
comes, though these here ponies certainly do
act up on a morning like this."

"Well, I would just as soon get my breath
for a moment," Azalea remarked to nobody in
particular, seating herself on the bench by the
side of the door. "As Hi Kitchell's mother says,
*I bin goin' like a streak o' lightnin' since sun-
up.' "

Her cheeks were, indeed, a trifle over-flushed,
and forgetting for a moment how time was has-
tening along, and that she and Jim ought already
to be on the road to school, she leaned her head
against the side of the cabin and looked about
her contentedly. She loved the scene before her ;

TWO AND ONE 13

loved the pines with their light coating of hoar-
frost; loved the waterfall with its gleaming ici-
cles ; loved the scent of the wood-smoke and the
sight of "Molly Cottontail" scampering through
the bushes.

Moreover, the kiss of Mary McBirney lay
warm on her lips — Mary McBirney who had
taken her in when she was a motherless and
friendless girl, and whom she found it sweet to
call mother. "Mother" was a longer word than
Jim — otherwise James Stuart McBirney, the
true son of the house — found it convenient to
use when he spoke of the woman who was the
background of his world. "Ma" was the term
he chose, and Mary McBirney would not have
cared to have him try any other.

For Jim was just Jim — her own freckled, shy,
plucky fellow. He went down to the district
school, riding on the pony the Carsons had given
him, while beside him, quite as if she were his
own sister, rode Azalea, who trusted him to see
her through any danger of the road, who laughed
as much as anybody could wish at his "hill billy"
jokes, and who never, never forgot how he had
welcomed her into his home, to share all he had,

J4 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

though there never had, at any time, been very
much to share.

Yet, though she had been only the "child won-
der" of a wandering "show" when she came to
the McBirney's — her own poor little mother ly-
ing dead in one of the wagons — it was she, and
not Jim, the carefully reared boy, who had the
grand little ways. Jim was a country boy, with
a country boy's straightforward, simple man-
ners. But about Azalea there was something — ■
well, something different. So different was she
from the McBirneys that she seemed like a car-
dinal bird which had been storm-driven into one
of the martin gourds that hung in the high cross-
trees before the McBirney's door.

All that was easily understood by the few who
knew her story. Her grandfather had been Col-
onel Atherton, the richest, the proudest, and the
most elegant gentleman in all the countryside.
He had owned great plantations in the old slave
days, and had built the beautiful manor house
which their new, wonderfully kind neighbors,
the Carsons, recently had bought. Azalea's
mother had exiled herself by a marriage with a
man of whom no parent could approve, and as
misfortune drove her ever lower and lower, she

TWO AND ONE 15

came at length to be a performer in the miserable
roadside show with which she had come, in her
last hour, to the scene of her father's old home.
That home had long since passed into other
hands, and concerning it Azalea's mother had
told her daughter nothing. It had been by an
accident that she later learned the truth.

When Mr. and Mrs. Carson, the friends who
had from the first of their acquaintance with her
endeavored to add to her happiness, learned her
story, they asked her to come into their home
to be a sister to their own girl, Carin. And
Azalea in her secret heart had longed to go — ■
more than she ever would have told, she longed
to be with these accomplished and gracious
friends, whose wealth made it possible for them
to do almost anything they pleased, and who
seemed pleased to do only interesting things.
But when she remembered the welcome that had
been given her by Mary McBirney, and indeed,
by all of the McBirney family, and how she had,
in a way, taken the place of their little dead
Molly, she was able to put temptation from her;
and the hour in which she had made her choice
and been gathered in "Ma" McBirney's arms
was the happiest she ever had known.

i6 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

So, though she was born Azalea Knox, the
granddaughter of Colonel Atherton, she was
now known as Azalea McBirney, the waif the
McBirneys had taken into their cabin to grow
up side by side with their son James Stuart. And
all over the Valley of Lee an interest was felt
in her; partly because of her being an orphan,
and a child of quaint and lovable ways, and
partly because of a strange happening. Not
long after she had come to live with the good
mountain folk, the owner of the show with which
she had once traveled had kidnapped her, and
the search for her had been long and anxious.

When she was rescued and brought back to
the home where she was so welcomed and loved,
all of the neighbors had a protective feeling for
her, and rejoiced that the Carsons, who had come
down from the North, and who seemed so eager
to be of help to everybody, should have taken her
in to be taught with their daughter. Never had
there been such neighbors as the Carsons in Lee.
They made goodness their business, it seemed.
Through them the mountain folk were finding
a market for their homemade wares — their
woven cloth and their counterpanes, their bas-
kets and chairs, and comfort had come into many

TWO AND ONE 17

a home where hitherto there had been cruel
poverty.

But there on the bench by the doorway in the
nipping morning air sits Azalea, with her nose
and ears growing redder and redder!

"Jim," she called, awakening from her rev-
erie, "we'll be late as sure as anything."

"Coming right along now, sis," answered the
boy as he came running from the stable with the
two ponies. "Hop into the saddle, Zalie, and
we'll just pelt it down the mountain. Here, I'll
hold him. There you are. Hi — they're off."

They surely were. Pa McBirney, busy in his
little smithy, heard the clatter of hoofs and thrust
his head from the door.

"Watch out, you two !" he warned.

"We will," they called in chorus as they
dashed on.

"My sakes," said pa, coming in from the shop
and wiping his hands on his leathern apron, "I
trust to luck ma didn't see 'em going off. Them
young uns are getting too much spirit in 'em to
suit me ; and as for the ponies, I think they ought
to be cut down on their feed."

But neither Azalea nor James Stuart was
wanting anyone to cut down on anything. As

i8 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

the firm-footed ponies took the cut-offs, minding
neither curve nor steep, the children shouted
with delight.

*'Late?" yelled Jim mockingly. "Who said
late? We couldn't be late if we tried."

They reached the parting of their ways, and
Azalea, who was leading, turned in her saddle
to wave to Jim.

"Good-bye, boy," she called.

"So long, sis," he answered, and turned to fol-
low the creek, and then to mount the hill at the
top of which stood the district school. But
Azalea kept on along the low-winding road till
she came to The Shoals, from whose four tall
chimneys the smoke mounted into the tinted air.
Benjamin, the polite black boy, was at the horse-
block to help her dismount and to lead away
Paprika, her pony; and Tulula Darthula, the
maid, opened the door to welcome her. Azalea
spoke a laughing word of greeting and ran on
down the corridor to the schoolroom.

It was a small room, semicircular in shape,
opening on the wintry garden. The rounding
portion of the wall was all of glass, which in
summer time gave way to screens, so that it then
seemed an actual part of the garden. Now, the

TWO AND ONE 19

polished panes reflected the flames leaping in
the fireplace, and revealed the frost-fringed
hemlocks without. Before the fire sat Miss
Parkhurst, the quiet, gray-eyed governess, and
with her, Carin, the friend whose approval was
more to Azalea than anything else in the world
save the love of the new "mother."

"Oh, here I am, late!" cried Azalea contritely.
"Please forgive me, ma'am."

Helena Parkhurst gave a pardoning smile.

"I really think we're ahead of time this morn-
ing— Carin and I. Take off your things, child,
and come up to the fire. We've been trying to
have it at its best when you came."

But Azalea's fingers, stiffened with holding
the bridle reins, made sorry work with her but-
tons, and Carin flew to her aid.

"You smell like winter. Azalea," she laughed,
snifling; "all cold and clean."

Azalea laughed happily. Whatever this blue-
eyed, golden-haired friend of hers did seemed
right to her — nay, better than merely right —
complete. It warmed Azalea more than the
glow of the room to have Carin snatch her cap
from her, and pull her reefer off, and tumble

20 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

her with affectionate roughness into the chair
before the blaze. '

"Colonial history again this morning," said
Miss Parkhurst after a time. "We're to read
about the Delaware and the Virginia Colonies,
since Carin's ancestors came from the first and
Azalea's from the second."

"Well, they'll be different enough, won't
they?" remarked Carin. "They were different
sort of folk before they crossed the Atlantic, and
their differences grew after they settled here.
And yet here Azalea and I are, as alike as can
be."

"But I don't think the differences of the col-
onists grew, Carin," said Azalea, "and I'm ter-
ribly afraid you and I aren't alike. I couldn't
be like you if I tried for ever and ever." She
gave a wistful sigh, and Miss Parkhurst, watch-
ing her without seeming to do so, saw the light
of hero-worship in her eyes. She knew that
Azalea was one of those who are born to love
hungrily, and to live eagerly; and she was thank-
ful that, having so hungry a heart, she was able,
when it came to a matter of opinion, to form her
own ideas, and to hold to them. Azalea's heart
was in leading strings to Carin, but her excellent

TWO AND ONE 21

little brain went on its independent way, though
Carin had traveled and studied, and been all her
life with charming and cultivated people, and
Azalea had been tended no more than a patch of
wayside daisies.

Miss Parkhurst brought the books they were
needing from the library, and Carin taking hers,
sighed happily: "Isn't it beautiful to be here
by ourselves — just the three of us? No one else
would fall into our way of doing. How nice it
is of you. Miss Parkhurst, to let us follow up
whatever idea w^'re interested in, and to help
us learn all we can about that subject, instead of
making us dash from one thing to another, till
we haven't a notion what we are trying to learn.
I'd never get anywhere, studying in the old-
fashioned way, jumping from subject to subject,
and having to wait for a whole class of stupid
creatures to come tagging along."

"But you might be the stupid one, you know,
Carin," smiled Miss Parkhurst. "I'm afraid it
doesn't do to go around the world supposing
yourself to be the cleverest one."

Carin shrugged her pretty shoulders.

"I don't think that," she said. "I always think
Azalea the cleverest one. I'm only saying that

22 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

we three understand each other, and that we
don't have to spend half our time explaining,
and that we're just as contented together as mor-
tals can be."

And just then the door opened and Mrs. Car-
son came into the room. Her face had lost some-
thing of the look of transparency it had worn
when she first came to Lee, when she had been
fresh from a terrible sorrow, but it was still pale
and strangely tender to Azalea's admiring eyes.

"I do hope you'll excuse me, Miss Parkhurst,"
she said in her soft voice, "for breaking into the
study hour. But I've something important to
talk over, and so I've come while all the mem-
bers of the academy are together."

She shook hands with Azalea as she spoke,
and patted Carin caressingly on the shoulder.

"I've come," she went on, "to talk to you about
taking in another girl."

"Another girl!" cried Carin in dismay. "What
girl, please, mamma?" She had sprung to her
feet, and stood before her mother with the color
sweeping over her face; but Azalea, keeping her
thoughts to herself, grew paler, and pinched the
edge of the table in her effort to keep the tears

TWO AND ONE 23

of vexation and disappointment from coming to
her eyes.

Another girl! And this perfect possession of
Carin would be taken from her, and there'd be,
as Carin put it, need to "explain" all of the time.
How could Mrs. Carson spoil such a perfect
thing as their association there? Who else would
love to study, and to write, and paint and sing
the way they did? Who else would make a
game out of it all, and long to get to the school-
room in the morning and hate to leave at night?

"It's Annie Laurie Pace," went on Mrs. Car-
son, apparently taking no heed of their misery.
"Have you met her? Perhaps not, since she
goes to the Baptist Meeting House, and you,
Azalea, are such a faithful young Methodist,
and Carin goes with me to the Episcopal
Church. But anyway, I think you must have
seen her — a tall girl, with red hair. She's been
helping me some at The Mountain Industries
rooms, and I've become well acquainted with
her. She's ahead of anything she can get at the
district school. Of course I don't mean that she
couldn't do more mathematics and that sort of
thing, but I am convinced that she has a strength
and originality of thought which is very un-

24 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

usual. She came here this morning to borrow
some books I had offered to lend her, and I
have been talking with her for the last hour.
I am so convinced that the work here under
Miss Parkhurst and with you two shining little
stars will give her precisely what she is hunger-
ing for, that I have invited her to join you."

"But, mamma," expostulated Carin, "we'll be
wretched with her! She's a nice enough girl,
I'm sure, and no doubt she's bright, but she'll
never be able to really understand Azalea and
me, will she, Azalea?"

Azalea said nothing. She was dreadfully em-
barrassed. She was wondering if Mrs. Carson
had some secret reason for forcing another girl
in with them? Could it possibly be that she —
Azalea — who had been- a wandering child, trav-
eling with coarse people in a low circus, was,
without knowing it, doing harm to Carin? Per-
haps. Carin was so fine, so gay, so sweet, so "like
a flower" as the song had it which Mrs. Carson
sang, that very likely she seemed no more than
a weed beside her.

"Probably that is all I am — a horrid, stupid
weed," said Azalea to herself bitterly as her

TWO AND ONE 25

thoughts flashed this way and that like troubled
birds, seeking for what was wrong.

"You can see how Azalea hates the idea, mam-
ma," said Carin. "And as for me, if that girl
comes in here, my education will be ruined."

She looked a haughty and determined young
person as she stood there, her chin lifted and her
blue eyes darting cold fires. Mrs. Carson had a
twinkle in her eye as she surveyed her. Carin
had been a gentle princess in the schoolroom,
with Miss Parkhurst for her willing guide and
Azalea her adoring servitor. The truth was, the
two girls had become so bound up in each other
that they saw nothing beyond their own horizon.
The dark-eyed girl from the mountain cabin,
with her strange, romantic history, and the blue-
eyed one from the mansion, loving romance
above all imaginable things, had made a com-
pact of undying friendship; and unconsciously,
they had also determined to exclude the rest of
the world.

"It may seem a little hard for you and Azalea
to take Annie Laurie in just at first, Carin," Mrs.
Carson went on, with no show of yielding — in-
deed, quite as if everything were settled — "but
she desperately needs the schooling, and I be-

26 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

lieve that, without realizing it, you need her.
What do you think, Miss Parkhurst; am I
right?"

To the increasing dismay of the friends, Hel-
ena Parkhurst nodded her nice little head.

*'One of the chief reasons why a girl should
go to school," went on Mrs. Carson, smilingly,
"is to learn to get along with other girls. You
and Azalea are so wrapped up in each other
that you actually don't see other girls as they
pass you on the road, and it never seems to occur
to you to visit their homes, or to ask them here.
It has been borne in upon me for some time that
if I don't watch out, you'll become a pair of hor-
rid little snobs. Of course you wouldn't know
that you were, and equally of course I wouldn't
admit it to anybody else. But such would be the
case, I feel sure."

"Oh, mother, we wouldn't, we w^ouldn't!"
protested Carin. "Just try us a little longer and

see."

But at that moment there came a knock at the
door, and Mrs. Carson arose to open it. The
girls could see without in the hallway the figure
of Annie Laurie Pace, the red-haired, surpris-
ingly tall girl whom they had occasionally seen

TWO AND ONE 27

in town; and now it occurred to each of them
that they had not particularly w^ished to know
her.

"Did you say I was to come dow^n here, Mrs.
Carson, after I had found that book?" she asked
shyly.

"Why, no," said Mrs. Carson impulsively, "I
didn't say that, Annie Laurie, but now that you
are here, come in and meet my daughter and her
friend."

She entered with a quiet dignity, and it took
but one second for Carin and Azalea to see that
here would be no timid imitator of their whims.
If "follow-my-leader" was played, it was not at
all certain that they would be in the fore.

"Carin," said Mrs. Carson, recovering herself
from a moment's embarrassment, "make your
new schoolmate w^elcome. Annie Laurie Pace,
Azalea McBirney."

Carin held out a chilly white hand.

"How do you do?" she said stiffly.

Azalea arose and gave her hand to the new
girl. She had been a stranger herself — had many
a time been among men and women unknown to
her, waiting wistfully to see if she would be
welcomed — and she understood, as Carin could

28 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

not possibly, what brought the veiled look in the
new girl's eyes. Yet she could not venture to
offend Carin — her own Carin, whose ways al-
ways seemed charming to her.

"How do you do?" she echoed. "I — I hope
you are well, Annie Laurie. This — this is a
very — pleasant school."

The words stuck in her throat, and she was
ashamed to find how much she wanted to cry.

The new girl looked toward Mrs. Carson.

"Ought I to stay, ma'am?" she asked. "You
know I could manage at the other school some
way. Wouldn't it be better if — "

"You will do us a favor if you stay with us,"
Mrs. Carson said. And: "Yes, stay, my dear,"
urged Helena Parkhurst, making the girls real-
ize for the first time that Annie Laurie had not
been presented to Miss Parkhurst, and that the
two must have been acquainted before. How
long, the girls wondered, had this conspiracy
been in the air? Had it really been decided only
that morning?

"Will you take up your studies to-day, then,
Annie Laurie?" Miss Parkhurst asked. "Mrs.
Carson, do you think her father would object?"

"I can telephone him," Mrs. Carson replied.

TWO AND ONE 29

"We already have had some conversation about
the matter. He has been thinking of sending
Annie Laurie away to school, but to do such a
thing, he said, would leave him very, very lonely,
since Annie Laurie is his only child."

"Oh, it could be managed," the girl broke in.
"I know it could, but — "

Mrs. Carson raised a white hand.

"It will be quite all right," she said with gen-
tle firmness. "Miss Parkhurst, you have three
pupils."

She withdrew smilingly; and in spite of the
leaping flame in the fireplace, and the sunshine
stealing like pale gold in at the window, a chill
settled down over the room. It crept into the
farthermost corners, and gleamed cold as little
bergs from the eyes of the three girls.

The three girls?

There were two girls — and one girl. And the
sum was not yet three.

CHAPTER II

ANNIE LAURIE PACE

Annie Laurie Pace was making ready for
church.

Her Sunday frock of dark blue serge lay on
the bed; her silk petticoat rustled as she stepped
briskly about the room; and her heavy coat and
gloves, and her hat with the ostrich plumes,
were primly awaiting her need. All was durable
about her clothing, and orderly within the room.

A very clean room it was, somewhat bare and
bleak, with a ceiling too high for its size. The
floor was uncarpeted, the walls white and with-
out pictures. No unnecessary thing was in sight
— not even a pretty foolish trinket on the dresser.
Through the windows with their dark green
shades Annie Laurie could look out into the
dairy yard with its whitewashed houses. Beyond
stretched the pastures in which grazed the fine
herd that was the pride of her father, Simeon
Pace.

Usually, Annie Laurie sang as she dressed for

30

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 31

church. She had a warm full voice, with notes
in it not unlike the whistle of an oriole. But this
morning no song came from her lips. She had a
set, almost stern look; her chin came out a little
farther than was necessary, and there was battle
in her eye.

Her aunts, dressing in the next room, spoke
of it.

"Annie Laurie is not herself," declared Miss
Adnah to Miss Zillah. "I can see that she is ter-
ribly put about. I do hope and pray that we
haven't made a mistake in letting her leave the
district school and go in with Carin Carson and
that other girl. It looks to me as if Mrs. Carson
was the only person that wanted her — except,
perhaps, the governess, Miss Parkhurst — and
staying where we're not w^anted is not a thing
that we could ever put up with, we Paces."

"Don't worry about Annie Laurie, sister,"
replied Miss Zillah, setting her queer lid-like
hat on her short gray curls. "She made the
change of her own free will, remember. She's
run up against a stone wall for the first time in
her life, and I'll be interested to see v/hether
she climbs over or burrows under it. Those two
girls she's studying with don't like her — or at

32 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

least they don't like to have her intruding on
them. I don't know as I blame them very much.
There they were, enjoying each other's society,
and in comes a stranger and thrusts them apart,
you may say. Annie Laurie is as unlike them as
she can be — quite of a different class, indeed."

Miss Adnah snapped the fasteners of her
gloves sharply.

"What do you mean by a different class, sis-
ter?" she said reprovingly. "Is it possible you
consider the Paces inferior to anyone in this com-
munity?"

"Now, Adnah dear, I didn't say anything
about inferiority. I spoke of a difference. What
the Paces know, they've mostly taught them-
selves; and what they have, they've honestly
earned. They're proud of it. But they're no
prouder of being what they are — well-to-do, re-
liable, respectable members of the community —
than the Carsons are of being highly cultivated,
rich, much-traveled gentle-folk, or the McBir-
neys of being industrious, independent mountain
people. The truth is, Adnah, if there were fewer
kinds of pride in this community, and less of
each kind, it would be a better thing."

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 33

"The team is up, aunts," called Annie Laurie
in her clear voice.

"Very well, child; we are ready," came the
reply.

Of course they wxre ready. It was seldom,
indeed, that anyone in that house kept anyone
else waiting. Simeon Pace, holding his fine
large grays in check, knew almost to a second
how long before the front door would open and
three tall, upright figures emerge. And this
morning was no exception. At the right instant
his sisters, in their well-preserved cloaks, came
out together, followed by his daughter. The
door was locked, the key placed in the crotch
of the sycamore, the aunts were helped to their
places by Annie Laurie's strong arms and then
she swung herself into the seat beside her father,
and took the reins from his hands. As she did so,
she happened to hit her father's left arm, which
gave forth a sound like the rattling of an eave
trough in the wind.

And truth to tell, it was made of the same ma-
terial, for where Simeon Pace's muscular mem-
ber of flesh and blood had once swung, there now
was an unjointed tin substitute for it, hollow as
a drum. An ill-advised visit to a sawmill five

34 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

years before was responsible for this defect,
which indeed, might have been all but concealed
had Mr. Pace been willing to buy one of the
excellent modern imitations of an arm. His sis-
ters and his daughter continually urged him to
do this, but Simeon said that his tin arm had
helped him when his trouble was new, and that
he refused to throw it on the trash heap as a re-
ward for faithful service. It was nothing to him
that his gestures startled nervous folk. He re-
mained loyal to his battered, awkward tin con-
venience, and seemed to take an innocent joy in
waving it in the air, offering it as a support to
old ladies, and sawing it up and down when he
became excited. All the Paces were indepen-
dent and Simeon was the most independent of
them all.

He led his women folk well up to the front
of the church and eyed them with critical
kindness as they filed past him into the pew, con-
fident that their thoughts would not wander from
the preacher's words during the service. So it was
good for his fatherly satisfaction that he did not
look into his daughter's mind, for barely a sen-
tence of the sermon did she hear that day. Her
thoughts were slipping back and forth like shut-

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 35

ties in a loom. The past week in Mrs. Carson's
home has been a strange — and in some ways, a
distressing — one. True, never had she learned
so much in so short a space of time. If she asked
a question everyone tried to answer it. Little as
the other two girls had seemed to like her, when
it came to a question of ideas, they paid instant
and warm attention. An idea was an idea with
them, and entitled to respect.

If the combined wit of Miss Parkhurst and
her pupils failed to supply a good answer to an
inquiry, plenty of books were at hand to consult,
and as a last reference, there were Mr. and Mrs.
Carson, who seemed to have been almost every-
where and to know something about almost
everything. As Annie Laurie had heard them
talk, speaking with interest about all manners
of people, her little local standards began to van-
ish like mist before the sun. For the first time
it was borne in upon her that Lee, North Caro-
lina, was not the center of civilization. All the
world, it appeared, was full of interest — full of
good neighborly folk. All one had to do was to
learn their language to find out how very nice
they really were. It was such a new and bril-

36 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

liant idea to Annie Laurie that it almost dazzled
her.

She had been used to thinking herself a bright
girl — a girl who could keep at the head of her
classes — so it was but natural in those first angry
hours when she raged at the cold reception Carin
and Azalea had given her, that she should have
thought: *'Just wait till we get down to lessons,
and then I'll show them."

But to her surprise, she had not been able to
"show them." Carin and Azalea did not attack
their studies so fiercely as she did. They seemed
to make more of a game of them and less of a
task. They laughed over things that puzzled her.
But for all that they were clever, and it did not
seem strange to them that Annie Laurie should
be clever too. Her cleverness, as they knew, was
Mrs. Carson's excuse for asking her to join them.
After that first chilly day they had been polite
enough. But they somehow put her in the
wrong. She felt awkward and strange. She
fatally said the wrong thing — or the right thing
in the wrong place. Even her clothes had seemed
stiff and unlovely beside theirs, though they were
of good material and honestly and thoroughly
made. However, as Annie Laurie had more

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 37

than once reflected, their clothes were made for
them by their mothers, who asked nothing bet-
ter than to see them looking their best. That
Mary McBirney w^as not really Azalea's mother
made no difference — she loved Azalea almost as
much, judging from what Azalea said.

Annie Laurie stole a glance at her two excel-
lent aunts — always so really kind and just to
her — but rather stern, like her father. The
Paces seldom laughed; they almost never kissed
each other; they said what they thought — and
they quite lacked that pretty foolishness which
Mrs. Carson sometimes indulged in with Carin.

Annie Laurie could remember that her own
mother had been something like Mrs. Carson.
It was she who had given her the name after the
sweet old song. She had laughed and danced
and sung, and the aunts had not quite liked it, al-
though they mourned her deeply when she died,
still in her youth. And they had treasured as
keepsakes the things which had been hers.

But what was the preacher saying all this
time? Something about Ananias and the doom
which overtook him because of his lies. It was
not a subject in which she could feel much in-
terest. Sometimes, up at her house they suffered

38 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

from too much truth telling — hard, cold truth
telling — but not a soul of them would have been
guilty of a lie.

"Plant a lie in the garden of your soul," said
the minister, "and it will flourish worse than any
poisonous weed. And do not think that you can
uproot it when you will, for it will grow and
grow, till it is stronger than you, and not all your
prayers and tears can tear it out of your life."

Annie Laurie wondered why he should be
talking like that to those friendly, good neigh-
bors, who seemed to be doing the best they could*
from morning till night. She wished he would
talk about something that would help her
through the coming week, for she dreaded going
back with those girls who did not like her. Why
couldn't preachers know what was going on in
the back of one's mind? She looked up wearily
and met the gaze of "that Disbrow boy," as her
aunts always called Sam Disbrow, the son of the
undertaker. For some reason they did not like
him. They "had no use for the whole kit and
b'ilin' of Disbrows." Yet, someway, Annie
Laurie, though she had grown up with this senti-
ment ringing in her ears, thought Sam Disbrow
rather a nice boy. At this moment he seemed to

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 39

be as impatient as she was at the way the minister
was scolding about liars. Evidently liars failed
to interest Sam, also.

It happened that Annie Laurie and Sam were
near together as the people came out of church,
and while the rest stood talking in the bright
winter sunshine, they talked, too.

"How are you liking it at your new school,
Annie Laurie?" he inquired.

The girl flushed hotly — it was easy for a per-
son with such white skin as Annie Laurie's to
blush. Sam knew this and made allowances, but
he saw there was something more than ordinary
the matter. He looked at her a moment, half
closing his eyes, and turning his head a little on
one side in a way he had.

"They've been snubbing you — those girls!" he
declared. "I knew they would — knew it as well
as anything."

"I don't see how you could know that," said
Annie Laurie with a sudden feeling that she
ought not say anything against Carin and Aza-
lea. "They're the nicest girls I ever knew; the
nicest girls anywhere about here. If I haven't
been able to — to make them understand me, it's
my own fault, I suppose."

40 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Nonsense!" cried Sam. "They're not nice if
they've been making you unhappy. How can
you let them do it? No fellow could put it over
me, now, I tell you. If he didn't treat me fair
and square, I'd have it out with him. We'd
soon see who was the best man."

"Girls don't do things that way, Sam."

"I know they don't. They sit around and
mope and sniff and feel mean, instead of mak-
ing a good healthy row. I didn't think you were
such a hypocrite."

"Hypocrite?" gasped the girl, too surprised
to feel angry. "How am I a hypocrite, Sam?"

"Because you're pretending to be contented
when you aren't. You probably act as if you
liked those girls. And you don't — you can't—
if they're snubby. I say, stir up a fuss. Have a
row. Tell 'em what you think of 'em. That
will clear the air."

"I'm under too many obligations to Mrs. Car-
son to do a thing like that, Sam."

"Obligations!" snorted Sam. "Nobody is un-
der obligations to be a doormat."

All the way home the girl kept thinking of
what Sam Disbrow had said to her. She would
have liked to talk the whole matter over with

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 41

her Aunt Zillah, but something held her back
from complaining of the girls. Deep down with-
in her was the feeling that if only she could
manage right, they would yet be friends, true,
"forever and forever" friends. If that should
prove to be so, it wouldn't do for this one and
that one to be remembering that she had criti-
cised them.

And yet, how they had tormented her with
their way of seeing and yet not seeing her, and
answering and yet not answering. And she was
lonely — desperately lonely. She longed to see
the gleam come in the girls' eyes when they
looked at her, which they turned upon each
other. All the long, quiet Sunday afternoon she
thought of it, though she tried to read. She
knew Azalea and Carin were together, for she
had heard them planning a horseback ride, while
she was alone, and as she told herself sadly, likely
to be alone every Sunday, since she knew no one
she really wished to be with — save those two, of
course.

She had an hour of trying to hate them, but
she failed miserably. For all they had made her
suffer, she could not get as far as hating them.
She failed to sleep well that night. Her mind

42 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

whirled like a merry-go-round, always bringing
back the same thoughts and persons. Azalea
and Carin, Carin and Azalea. The bright and
charming faces kept returning, but never once
did they seem to bear the smiles of friendship
and understanding.

Naturally she was far from being herself when
she went down to breakfast the next morning,
and when her Aunt Adnah said, "You see to it,
Ann, that you're not put upon there at Mrs. Car-
son's," her patience snapped like a wind-filled
bag.

"Oh, please leave me alone. Aunt Adnah,"
she cried hotly. "I'll take care of myself all
right."

"My dear, my dear," murmured Miss Zillah,
"ought you to be speaking like that to your Aunt
Adnah?"

Annie Laurie knew very well that she ought
not, and she was morally certain that if Carin
and Azalea could have heard her, they would
have cried: "There, see! You call her a nice
girl?"

Well, maybe she wasn't a nice girl, but cer-
tainly she was an unhappy one.

She put her head up as high as she could com-

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 43

" fortably carry it on her very slim neck and
marched away to school. It was a wonderful
winter morning — the sort that got into the blood
of horses and made them prance. Perhaps it
was in Annie Laurie's blood, too, as she entered
the schoolroom that morning. Miss Parkhurst
had not yet come, and Carin and Azalea sat to-
gether laughing over some charts of the South
Sea Isles. Miss Parkhurst had laid out an in-
teresting course for them, all relating to the
Archipelago; and • geography, history, biog-
raphy, poetry and fiction were to be woven
together until the life of the "burning isles" ap-
peared before them in a series of vivid mental
pictures.

If Annie Laurie had been aware of the amount
of explosive material in her brain and heart that
morning, perhaps she would have had the dis-
cretion to remain at home. She really was about
as dangerous as a keg of gunpowder, and it
chanced that Carin's first words were as a match
to produce the inevitable explosion.

"I don't suppose you'd care about reading
Stevenson's 'Ebb Tide,' would you, Annie
Laurie? Not, I mean, as a part of the South
Sea study?" She put the question in that cold,

44 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

detached little voice which she had used from
the first to the "new girl." "We couldn't expect
a thorough person like yourself to enjoy such an
unbusiness-like way of getting at things. I said
to Miss Parkhurst that probably Azalea and I
had better keep that for reading after hours, and
during school we'll study any old Smithsonian
Institute reports you and she manage to look

up."

There was a little click in Annie Laurie's
throat, but no spoken word. Carin, looked up,
saw the anger blazing in the girl's eyes, and
started to say that she was only joking; but be-
fore she could frame the words Annie Laurie
found her tongue.

"Why wouldn't I like to read Stevenson as
well as you two?" she demanded. "Why do you
make out that I try to do things in the hard and
stupid way? You've certainly made them hard
and stupid enough for me the past week. You're
supposed to have such fine manners, and Azalea
is thought 'so sweet.' I haven't seen your fine
manner or her sweetness. I imagined it was go-
ing to be lovely here with you two — that my life
w^ould grow to be interesting when we three were
friends. Well, perhaps it would — if we could

ANNIE LAURIE PACE 45

be friends. But we can't. First, because you
won't be — and second because I won't. I'm
through. I shouldn't have come. I'm disgusted
that I gave you a chance to snub me. I'm going
now, and after this when you poke fun at me
you'll have to do it behind my back."

"Why — why — Annie Laurie — " gasped Carin,
"I didn't know—"

But Annie Laurie already had left the room
and was stalking down the corridor. Carin sank
back in her chair and covered her face with her
hands. As for Azalea, her book crashed to the
floor.

"Oh, Carin," she cried, "what have we done?"

Miss Parkhurst still was absent, but if she had
been there, it is doubtful if the girls would have
consulted her. The battle which had been threat-
ening all week was on, and the victory at pres-
ent was, oddly enough, with the fleeing enemy.

She was already out of the front door by the
time Azalea had reached the hall; and once she
was in the open, her dignity deserted her and
she ran toward the gate as if fleeing from a lava
stream. Azalea, who had stopped to snatch her
cap and reefer, reached the gate only to see her

46 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

racing along the road as fast as her long legs
would carry her.

Meantime, Hi Kitchell, the boy who had trav-
eled with Azalea in those old, half-forgotten
days, and who was now happily settled with his
mother and "the kids" in the cabin in which the
Carsons had placed them, opened his sharp eyes
to see two girls racing along the frozen road,
stumbling over hard ruts, and then plunging
on again. He knew them both — liked Annie
Laurie and swore by Azalea. He saw the anger
in the first girl's face and the anxiety in Azalea's
every gesture. He couldn't for the life of him
see why, if Annie Laurie felt like that, she didn't
turn around and "baste" Azalea. But if she did
he'd be on Azalea's side all right enough.

Goodness, how they were running! He simply
couldn't stand not knowing what it all was about.
He knew it was none of his business, but for all
of that, a second later he was pelting down the
road after them. He could run like a rabbit and
it was not long before he overtook them.

But that was just at the moment when Annie
Laurie reached her home and, dashing in,
slammed the door behind her; and Azalea, pant-
ing on the doorstep, furiously rang the bell.

CHAPTER III

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY

Miss Adnah was washing dishes in her spot-
less kitchen when the inner door burst open and
a wild-eyed Annie Laurie stood before her.

"Child!" gasped Miss Adnah.

Annie Laurie stood panting breathlessly, her
hands on her sides, her eyes blazing.

"Well, you said I wasn't to let myself be put
upon," she managed to say at length. "So I
didn't. I had my say. I'm through I"

"What have you done?"

"I'm through," she went on shrilly. "To-mor-
row I'll go back to the district school. The other
thing wasn't for me."

The anger in her eyes began to give way In
misery. Miss Adnah stared at her, trying for
once to get at the girl's point of view. Then
came the frantic ringing at the bell.

"Mercy on us," cried Miss Adnah, "what can
that mean?"

"Don't go, aunt. Don't you go. It's Azalea
McBirney. She followed me. You mustn't — '*

47

48 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Stand out of my way, Ann. How can you put
yourself between me and the door? When the
bell rings, it is to be answered. I do not approve
of your actions, allow me to say."

But just then the breathless voice of Azalea
was heard in the hall. Miss Zillah had got to
the door before them, and had admitted her.

"Don't try to talk, my dear," they heard Miss
Zillah saying. "Whatever it is, it can wait till
you get your breath. Come in, please, and sit
down."

In the kitchen, Annie Laurie was declaring
that whatever came she would not go into the
parlor.

"I won't talk the matter over, that's all," she
said. "It's no use for you to try to make me go
in there."

Miss Adnah moved back from her niece with
a look of displeasure.

"You'd better quiet down, Ann," she said
severely. "I can't imagine what you've done or
what's been done to you, but I do feel certain
that you are making a mountain out of a mole-
hill."

At that moment something bobbed up at the
window and then bobbed down again.

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 49

"Mercy, what's that?" cried Miss Adnah.

"A head," said Annie Laurie disgustedly.

"Ahead! Whose?"

"Hi Kitchen's. He must have seen us run-
ning and followed."

"The inquisitive little imp! A pretty sight
the three of you must have made. Never have I
heard such goings on in the house of Simeon
Pace. Let me pass, Ann. I must look into this
matter."

Annie Laurie never yet had disobeyed when
her aunt spoke in that manner, and she stood
aside, lifting her eyebrows with annoyance at
the "Ann" which was the sign of Miss Adnah's
displeasure. She began to grow a little calmer,
but at the same time the feeling of heaviness at
her heart increased. It actually seemed as if it
had turned into a stone and was dragging her
down. And worse still, there was a hand of
iron at her throat. That sharp despair of the
young was upon her — that foolish despair, which
sees no way out of hard circumstance.

Meantime Miss Adnah had gone on into the
hall. She had meant to make her way at once
into that grim parlor upon which her best efforts
at cleanliness were so rigorously expended, but

50 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

the sound of voices made her pause. She heard
a girl's excited voice broken by tears.

"Oh, you're Annie Laurie's aunt, aren't you?"
said the voice. "Which aunt, please? Her aunt
Zillah? Oh, yes. She has told me about you.
Oh, Miss Pace, it's so dreadful! We've broken
Annie Laurie's heart, that's what we've done.
We didn't intend it, you know. It came about
because — may I tell you everything?"

"Yes, tell me everything," answered Miss Zil-
lah.

"Of course Zillah will be soft with her,"
thought Miss Adnah. "She's soft with every-
body. I'd like to go in and shake her — upsetting
Annie Laurie like that."

There were long panes of glass running down
beside the front hall door, and at this moment
the ferret face of Hi Kitchell, seamed with anx-
iety, peered in one of them. This was really
too much for Miss Adnah. She rushed to the
door and threw it open, sending Hi off backward
into the althea bush. It was no trick at all for
Miss Adnah to stoop and pick him up as if he
were a slug.

"What do you mean, you unmannerly, prying

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 51

boy?" she demanded. "Peeking in folk's win-
dows, like you were a wild Indian!"

"Tell me what you're doing to Azalea,"
squealed Hi defiantly. "Azalea's all right,
ma'am. I don't want anything done to her."

"Well, she wasn't invited here any more than
you," snapped Miss Adnah, dropping him on the
brick walk. "You run home and leave us to con-
duct our own affairs. Hear?"

"Oh, aunt!" Annie Laurie whispered agoniz-
ingly, "Azalea will hear you."

"Why didn't you stay in the kitchen, miss?
You seemed very anxious not to leave it a few
minutes ago. I won't have boys looking in my
windows."

"But it's only Hi. He's crazy about Azalea —
like her little brother, you know. Azalea will
think we're dreadful."

"Dreadful? We may be a terror to evil doers
— well, hear that telephone, will you? Ringing
like mad. Never did I know such a morning.
No, I'll answer it, Ann. Hello! Hello! Yes.
The Pace residence. Who? Carin Carson. Very
well, what is it? Yes, Ann is home. All right?
Of course she's all right. Why shouldn't she be?
You want to speak to her? She's busy just now.'*

52 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Oh, oh, don't speak like that, aunt," implored
Annie Laurie. "Not in that tone of voice. Let
me have the telephone, Aunt Adnah, please —
please. I was bad, honestly, aunt — not at all the
way I ought to have been. Carin's sorry, I
reckon."

But Miss Adnah had hung up the receiver,
and she turned toward Annie Laurie with a
stormy look in her eye.

"I reckon I did you an injustice, Ann. It
must have been something pretty bad they did to
you. You can back down as much as you please,
but for my part I mean to teach them that if
they think they can fool with the Paces, they are
making a mistake."

"But my child," the clear tones of Miss Zillah
could be heard saying from the drawing room
meantime, "why didn't you like Annie Laurie?
She seems the nicest sort of a girl to me. I've
taken care of her — I and my sister, that is —
since she was a little one, and she's all that a
daughter should be to us. Of course I realize
that we may not have succeeded in taking her
mother's place to her. That was hardly to have
been expected. But we have done the best we
could for her, and when we saw her coming on

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 53

in school so splendidly, and realized that she
was likely to do something fine, we were very
proud indeed. I can't tell you how grateful we
were to Mrs. Carson for giving her a chance for
special instruction, and for being in with girls
like you and Miss Carin. But we saw from the
first that something was going wrong. The child
seemed too excited to eat. Once or twice I've
heard her cry out in the night — she sleeps next
me, and after she's asleep I open the door be-
tween our rooms so as to hear if anything goes
wrong."

"And a very silly habit it is," muttered Miss
Adnah from the hall.

"Oh, don't say any more, Miss Pace," Azalea
broke in with a sob in her voice. "If anybody
in this world ought to have been good to Annie
Laurie it is myself, for I haven't any mother,
either, you know, though of course Mrs. Mc-
Birney is as good to me as any mother could be.
I can't explain the way we've acted. It all came
about from Carin and myself having some lovely
secrets together, and games we liked to play that
we didn't want to share with any one. And we
were writing poems, and Carin was painting me.
We were happy in each other all the time. Then

54 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Annie Laurie came and — and we didn't know
her. It wouldn't have made any difference who
the girl was that broke in on us, we wouldn't
have liked it. Mrs. Carson said we were getting
selfish and snobbish, and I suppose we were.
And Annie Laurie was proud, too — and — and
well, a little — "

"Say it, my dear. I am not laboring under the
delusion that Annie Laurie is wearing a halo on
her head."

"Well, sulky. So she didn't give us a chance
to see the — the nice side which she simply must
have since you love her so. And we wouldn't
show ours to her. We were all stupid, I think.
But of course we didn't have an idea how she
really felt until this morning when she got so
angry. And then I was — was just paralysed."

"You talk very well, my child, for a person
suffering with paralysis. I can see very well
how it came about, however. Now may I ask
why you came here?"

"To say how sorry we were — and to beg Annie
Laurie to come back with us."

"But have you the right to do this? Did Mrs.
Carson tell you to come?"

Azalea, who had been sitting on the very edge

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 55

of Miss Zillah's horsechair sofa, now got to her
feet, her face flaming till it was almost as red as
her knitted reefer.

"No," she said frankly. "She— she didn't tell
me to come, Miss Pace. I just ran after Annie
Laurie as hard as I could."

"And very sweet it was of you, my dear. It
shows you have a generous heart, and that you
couldn't imagine Mrs. Carson or her daughter
would feel any differently from you. But you
can see for yourself that I must wait till I hear
from them."

"We have heard from them," cried Annie
Laurie eagerly from the hall. "Carin tele-
phoned, Aunt Zillah; but Aunt Adnah wouldn't
let her talk."

"I should think not, indeed," came the voice
of Aunt Adnah.

"Oh, come in, Annie Laurie, please," cried
Azalea, running toward the hall door.

Annie Laurie made a motion as if for flight,
then brought herself up sharply, and faced Aza-
lea. Miss Zillah had arisen and stood smiling
and trembling a trifle, too, like a rose bush softly
shaken by the wind. Her lips moved slightly,
and Annie Laurie, flashing a glance at her as

56 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

she came into the room, understood that Aunt
Zillah was putting up one of her gentle supplica-
tions for peace.

"Oh, Annie Laurie," Azalea burst forth, "I've
come to ask you to forgive me. You really,
really must. I had no idea how you were feel-
ing. I'm terribly unhappy about it. Don't you
think you can forgive me?"

"What is there for me to forgive?" asked An-
nie Laurie. "You didn't want me — you and
Carin — and you showed it. That's all there is
to it. I shan't bother you any more."

"Well, I want you now," declared Azalea.
"You can see yourself that it would be impossible
for Carin and me to be happy with you leaving
that way, all hurt and angry. I don't blame you
a bit, really. Except, of course, I think you shut
up like a clam when you saw that we didn't like
a third person in the classes. It wasn't that we
objected to you in particular. We were selfish,
that's all, and fond of our own good times; but
it won't be like that again, honestly it won't.
Your aunt says I mustn't speak for Carin and
Mrs. Carson, and I see that I mustn't, but I know
so well that I am saying just what they would
want me to say, that I can't keep still." She

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 57

turned toward Miss Zillah, and caught the worn
hand of the woman in hers. "Truly," she said,
"they'd be saying just what I am, if they were
here."

"That boy again I" exploded Miss Adnah from
the hall. "He's looking in the hall window
again."

"It's only poor Hi," explained Azalea. "You
see, he's always afraid something is going to
happen to me."

"Well, if I had my way, it would," snapped
Miss Adnah.

"Oh, sister, sister," murmured Miss Zillah.

And just then the eyes of Azalea and Annie
Laurie met. There was a flash between them
and then something exploded — exploded in help-
less laughter. Miss Zillah, unable to believe her
senses, called faintly, "Adnah! Adnah!" And
Adnah, on the point of making another sortie
into the yard for the prying Hi, answered her
appeal, and came to the parlor. There she saw
the two girls in convulsions of laughter, and Zil-
lah stiff and incredulous on the piano stool. Miss
Adnah surveyed the scene for a moment in
wrath.

58 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

*'Come, Zillah," she commanded, and dragged
her sister from the room.

The girls heard the kitchen door slam behind
the two, and rocked again with painful mirth.

*'Oh, oh," half-sobbed Annie Laurie at length,
"how ridiculous we've been!"

''Dreadful," agreed Azalea. "I'm just as
ashamed of myself as I can be. Can't I go and
apologize to your aunts?"

"Not on any account," said Annie Laurie
firmly. "They'll never understand. Never!
You couldn't expect them to."

"Will you come back with me, Annie Laurie?
We're bound to like each other now after we've
laughed together like that."

Annie Laurie gave a final gurgle,

"I know," she said. "Let's go out and tell Hi."

"No, just let's walk out together, arm in arm.
That will make it all right. Let's never, never
tell anyone what happened."

"Very well, then. And you think I ought to
go back?"

"I know it. You must go on Carin's account
and on mine — just prove we're not so horrid as
you thought us."

The telephone rang again. They could hear

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 59

Miss Zillah begging to be allowed to answer it
and Miss Adnah refusing. So Annie Laurie
took down the receiver.

"Yes, Mrs. Carson," Azalea heard her say.
"Yes, it's Annie Laurie. Yes, Azalea is here.
Forgive Carin? Yes, Mrs. Carson. I reckon
it was my fault, too. Oh, I'm sure it wasn't yout-
fault, whosever it was, ma'am. We've been bad,
that's all. Everybody is bad sometimes, I sup-
pose. I never was so horrid before, though, hon-
estly. You say Carin never was, either. Well,
I'm coming back now. Azalea and I were just
starting. What is it? Oh, yes, we'll not talk of
it. Very well, Mrs. Carson. Good-bye."

She turned to Azalea.

"Come," she said, "if we go right along we'll
be able to finish our South Sea Island study
hour."

She put her head in the kitchen door.

"Good-bye, aunts," she said. "Try to forget
about it all. I'm going back."

"Annie Laurie," came the austere voice of her
Aunt Adnah, "how can you?"

Annie Laurie ran in and threw her arms
around her aunt's neck.

6o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Because I have to, auntie," she said, "to be
happy and — "

"And good," broke in Aunt Zillah. She fol-
lowed them out into the hall. Her pale face
was shining, and her short curls bobbed about
on her trembling head. She knew that her prayer
for peace had been answered. It did not matter
to her that it had come in gusts of laughter. Miss
Zillah was not one to quarrel with ways and
means.

As for the girls, they set out on the road with
vigor. The air was full of life, the mountains
were brown beneath their purple bloom, and the
roadway was beginning to fill with folk driving
in to market. Azalea and Annie Laurie knew
almost every one — knew Mr. Disbrow, the un-
dertaker, driving his black horses — which now
were hitched to a somewhat rickety buggy — they
knew "Haystack" Thompson, who was eating up
the road with his great strides, his fiddle under
his arm; they knew Elder Mills, twisted and
tormented with rheumatism, who was about to
"accept a call" in Florida, thus leaving vacant
the pulpit of the Methodist church; they were
well acquainted with the grocer, and the miller,
and the postmaster, and the sheriff. From each

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 6i

they received a salutation, and from most of them
an inquiry as to why they were not in school.
Annie Laurie, used to the "yea and nay" of the
Pace household, wondered what they ought to
answer, and she was astonished that Azalea had
no difficulty at all in finding a fit reply.

"Oh, we've been to school this morning," she
said smilingly. "And we've learned a hard les-
son, too. Now we're on our way back again."

But they had got no more than half the way
to The Shoals when the familiar surrey of the
Carsons appeared, with Mrs. Carson sitting
in it.

"Goodness," cried Annie Laurie, "she's com-
ing for me! What trouble I have put every-
body to."

But Mrs. Carson didn't seem to think that any-
body was making her trouble. She wore that
pleasant, dreamy smile of hers — her "moon-
light" smile, as Carin called it, and her voice was
as even and low as ever as she bade Benjamin
turn the horses, and invited the girls to get in
beside her.

"I thought I'd come to meet you," she said
blandly, and quite as if nothing had happened.
They rode along together in silence for a while,

62 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

almost wondering if anything unpleasant really
had occurred, Mrs. Carson seemed so uncon-
scious of it. But when they got out of the car-
riage at the house door she said:

"I'm so glad you've talked everything out.
You'll find it much better always, I believe — to
talk things out. By the way, Carin is up in her
studio. Lessons are to be up there this morning,
for a change. Azalea, will you kindly show An-
nie Laurie the way? Your luncheon will be
served there too. We thought we'd celebrate the
formation of the Triple Alliance.

"What, ma'am?" said Azalea.

"The Three Girls' Alliance," smiled Mrs.
Carson. "Drive back to town, please Ben. I
must do my marketing."

As she rode off, Annie Laurie looked at Aza-
lea in a puzzled way.

"How quiet she is," she said. "I can't make
her out. Nothing seems to matter to her, yet
she's always doing good. I never heard of any-
one who did so much good. Can you under-
stand her?"

Azalea shook her head.

"No — and yet a great sorrow, such as hers —
it makes you still, I reckon. My mother — I call

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 63

Mrs. McBirney my mother, you know — is still.
Yet she has lost only one child, and little Molly
died right in her arms. But Mrs. Carson lost
her three sons in a theatre fire in Chicago, and
it did something to her, I suppose. The heart
went out of her, though not the goodness."

"Oh, dear no," agreed Annie Laurie, "not the
goodness."

They left their outer wraps in the vacant
schoolroom, and then made their way up the
wide mahogany stairs, with the gleaming white
banisters and mahogany rail. Curious old prints
lined the side of the wall, and Annie Laurie
wanted to pause and look at them, but Azalea
urged her on.

"If you stopped to look at every interesting
thing in this house," she said, "you'd never get
anywhere."

They went on past the floor where the bed-
rooms were, and then up a narrower flight of
stairs to the third story.

"Half of this story is Carin's," explained Aza-
lea. "The servants sleep in the other half."

A tall, curious door, much paneled, with a
shining brass knob, stood before them. There

64 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

was also a knocker of brass, shaped like a lyre.
Azalea rapped with it.

"Come in," said the voice of Carin, and Aza-
lea threw wide the door and motioned Annie
Laurie to enter.

What she saw then she was never to forget.
It was as bright to her, as different from any-
thing she ever had seen, as the green Azores are
to one who has ridden long upon the gray At-
lantic. The room was paneled high in white,
and above it, decorations of tropical flowers and
parokeets made the wall gay. Muslin curtains
hung at the dormer windows, beneath draperies
of delicate green. Near the north window was
Carin's easel, with the unfinished portrait of
Azalea upon it. Chairs of green wicker stood
about; a huge divan was piled with dainty pil-
lows; in the white wooden fireplace, with its
tiles of parrots, palms and pagodas, a bright fire
burned. Japanese rugs of gray and white lay
on the floor, and in jars of pale green, or gray,
were beautiful blossoming plants.

But exquisite as the room was, and deeply as
it satisfied Annie Laurie's beauty-starved heart,
it was as nothing to the girl who was the center
of it. In her crimson school frock, soft and

\ v

L 4^

:^^

Carin stood awaiting them, her hands outstretched.

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 65

graceful, her golden hair shining on her shapely
head, her eyes full of tears of repentance, Carin
stood awaiting them, her hands outstretched. It
all seemed so different from what Annie Laurie
knew of her, that at first she hesitated to go for-
ward, but Carin came on, still with that look of
solicitude in her face.

*'Oh, Annie Laurie," she said, "I see every-
thing now. I see how I acted and how I made
you feel. You'll have to forgive me. I never
was like that before. It was as if imps got in-
side me, and the worst of it was that I seemed to
want to hang on to them. I knew I was wicked,
but I liked to be that way. I just wouldn't give
up, though I was unhappy all the time. I told
mother all about it, and she said that was the way
it was when you got perverse. You liked it.
Perversity seemed sweeter than anything. She
said it was like being a drunkard. You enjoyed
the thing that ruined you. I can see just what
she meant. I'll tell you now, Annie Laurie, that
after the first day or two I found myself liking
you, and I hated to admit it. I tried not to as
hard as I could. I didn't like mamma's putting
a girl in with us without talking it over, do you
see? But I do like you — I had to. The whole

66 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

trouble was that I couldn't bear to give up. But
you've made me, and now I'm well again. For
it's just like a spell of sickness, having a horrid,
wicked idea like mine and holding on to it. Do
you understand?"

Annie Laurie's face had flushed softly; her
eyes were misty, her handsome, large mouth
slightly tremulous. She withdrew her hands
from Carin's, and put her arms close about her.

"When I say I forgive," she said, "I do."

"And do you say it?"

Annie Laurie laughed deep in her throat — and
again her voice reminded one of an oriole's.

"I do say it," she said. "Your mother called
it the Triple Alliance — the Three Girls' Alli-
ance."

"We must swear fealty!" cried Azalea. She
ran to the table and brought back Howard Pyle's
"Robin Hood," in which the story of the forester
and his faithful crew is told in equally beautiful
words and pictures.

"Swear!" she commanded. Carin, laughing
somewhat uncertainly, dropped her slender
white hand on it. Annie Laurie laid her firm
brown one over it; Azalea placed on top her

TRIAL WITHOUT JURY 67

sensitive, odd hand, which always quivered when
she cared about anything.

"We swear," they said in chorus.

The door opened and Miss Parkhurst entered,
her arms full of books.

CHAPTER IV

A RAINY NIGHT

After thatj the short days of winter passed as
happily for the three girls as days can be ex-
pected to pass in a world which some discour-
aged person called "a vale of tears." Alert as
their minds were, each was decidedly different
from the other, and they had the effect of spur-
ring each other on. Carin was, of course, really
more interested in her drawing and painting than
in anything else, although she was a good stu-
dent, too. Annie Laurie simply devoured books,
and her happiest diversion was music. A good
teacher came weekly from Rutherford, a town
near by, to give her instruction. But Azalea took
neither drawing nor singing lessons. She had
much housework to do before and after school,
and her long ride down the mountain each morn-
ing and back again at night, with the fatigue it
entailed, had to be taken into account. Then
she helped with the sewing and with the weav-
ing, and so had neither time nor strength for

68

A RAINY NIGHT 69

anything else. Once Mrs. Carson said to her
husband:

"Perhaps we were wrong not to insist on hav-
ing Azalea live with us. It is true that few chil-
dren have so much love and care given them as
she has there with the dear McBirneys. But she
has to share their poverty too, and their hard
work. Do you think she will be worn out,
Charles? Children seem so precious to me. I
can't bear to see their strength wasted."

"My dear, she is being made into a very capa-
ble girl," Mr. Carson answered reassuringly.
"She is having the sort of training our pioneer
ancestors had, and they grew stronger for their
tasks and hardships. You and I are not going to
live forever, you know, and our Carin will never
want to take up the work we're doing here among
the mountain people. She'll be ofi to Paris or
Rome, I suppose, picture seeing and making.
But here's Azalea, in the most practical arts and
crafts school possible. She sees the mountain
handicrafts made every day right before her eyes,
and when she's grown she'll be able to teach
others. She'll come in here and take ud the
work where we leave off."

"Charles Carson," cried his wife indignantly.

70 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

shocked for once out of her sweet placidity,
"what do you mean by speaking of us as if we
were old? Why, we're hardly middle-aged."

"Aren't we?" said Mr. Carson rather wearily,
yet smiling too. "I didn't know, Lucy. Some-
times it seems to me as if I had lived a long
time."

His wife was silent. She knew what he meant.
Who could know better? The day of blight»that
took from them their three fine sons had left
them disinclined to go on playing the game of
life. They had tried many things, and at length
had come into this quiet valley, where there was
so much uncomplaining poverty, where the peo-
ple had latent talents that only needed encour-
agement to make them bread-winning forces,
and they had endeavored to make themselves
necessary

They had bought the beautiful old home that
long years before had belonged to Azalea's
grandfather, Colonel Atherton, and they had
showered their favors right and left and tried to
make their influence felt in all parts of the
county. Their love of doing something, of build-
ing up, was as a fresh wind blowing in a sultry
plain. For a lassitude had hung over the beauti-

A RAINY NIGHT 71

ful valley of Lee — a lassitude born of long years
of loneliness, lack of opportunity and monotony.
Too little had happened; there had been too few
ways of earning money; too few strangers had
come that way. One day was so like another that
a spell lay upon the people, and they moved as in
a long dream. But it was different now. There
was some use in making the strong, hand-woven
cloth, the durable, quaint chairs and the curious
baskets, for Mr. Carson saw that they were
profitably marketed.

Mr. Carson had induced the mother of Hi
Kitchell, a little worn woman with three chil-
dren to support, to come down from the moun-
tains and oversee his industries for him. He had
given her a little home on the level spot known
as the Field of Arrows, an ancient Indian camp-
ing ground, and here the young women came to
learn the weaving of baskets and of cloth. The
front room was the shop, where the people came
to buy these interesting wares.

Here, too, the three girls came sometimes after
school for a cup of tea and some homemade cake
— for Mrs. Kitchell served these comforts to all
who wished them — and sitting around her fire,
they listened to her stories and told tales of their

72 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

own adventures. Sometimes there would be a
dozen or more in the tea room, whiling away
the tedium of a winter afternoon. Hi and the
other children helped with the servingj and now
and then "for the fun of it" Jim McBirney or
Sam Disbrow took a hand. There always was
plenty to do at the Mountain Industries, it
seemed, however slack work might be elsewhere.

One day of cold rain, Azalea and Annie
Laurie had stopped in at Mrs. Kitchell's for a
cup of tea before they made their way to their
distant homes. There was no one there that after-
noon, save the sharp-eyed, busy Mrs. Kitchell,
and she, having served them, went back to the
loom-room and left them to themselves. The
girls were excellent friends now. They trusted
and admired each other — counted on each other,
as true friends should.

"Azalea," said Annie Laurie, "I never under-
stood rightly about your 'cousin Barbara.' I've
heard you speak of her, but I'm not quite clear
as to who she is."

Azalea laughed lightly.

*'She isn't really my cousin at all," she said.
"I have no kin, Annie Laurie. But I have told
you, have I not, how my poor mamma and I

A RAINY NIGHT 73

were traveling with a dreadful show when she
died; and how we had got as far as the McBir-
ney's cottage, and Ma McBirney — as Jim calls
her — had my dear mamma buried right there
near the house, where her own little Molly's
grave is? Then she asked the show people to
let her take me, and they wouldn't. And so the
dear, brave thing took me anyway, and ran away
up into the mountains with me and hid with me
in a cave. And Pa McBirney and some of his
friends stayed down at the house, with shotguns,
and scared the show folk away. Well, Sisson, Hi
Kitchen's uncle, who was at the head of the show,
was terribly angry, and he made up his mind he
would have me back again. So one time, when
we all went ofif to a 'Singing,' he managed to get
me, and to carry me away, and for weeks I was
taken f romx one place to another in the mountains,
away off the beaten tracks, always hiding. Oh,
it was such a time, Annie!"

"I know," said the other sympathetically. *'0f
course I heard about that. We were all so ex-
cited, wondering if you'd be found, and I just
cried when I heard that you were, and that
good old Haystack Thompson was bringing you
home. I didn't know you — and I couldn't even

74 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

remember having seen you — but I felt interested
in you from that moment."

"Well, perhaps you heard that I managed to
run away from the people who were hiding me,
and I went down the mountain in the night, and
came to the little town at the foot of it, and crept
into a house there, and into a sleeping-porch
with a bed in it. Oh, I was so tired — so tired it
was almost like dying. I don't really remember
getting in that bed; but I was found there in
the morning by Mr. Summers, who is a Metho-
dist minister, you know. His wife is Barbara
Summers. And they have the dearest baby you
ever saw or heard of — Jonathan Summers, he is,
bless him. Well, Mrs. Summers is just a little
dear thing with brown eyes — she's no bigger
than I am. And from the minute we saw each
other, we loved each other and felt at home. So
we decided that we'd be kin. I write to her one
week, and she writes to me the next. She sends
me pictures of Jonathan that she takes with her
little camera, and I send her presents when I
can — little woven table-covers or baskets. You've
no idea how sweet she is, Annie Laurie."

"You seem to make friends whenever you
please, Azalea. It's so easy for you! The Paces

A RAINY NIGHT 75

aren't like that. It's hard for them to let them-
selves go and say the thing that comes into their
minds. We're stiff, someway. But when we
do make friends, we keep them."

"Be sure to keep mc, Annie Laurie. I
nearly lost you through my own carelessness, and
I mean to hang on to you now. Well, come, let's
start for home."

But as it turned out, it was raining most dis-
mally. A dark cloud had tumbled off the moun-
tain and settled down over the valley, and though
it was not late, it seemed almost like night.

"Goodness me," said Annie Laurie, "I don't
like to think of you riding away up on the moun-
tain a night like this. Why, you'd be drenched."

"I ought to have accepted Carin's invitation
and stayed all night with her," said Azalea.
"Mother doesn't expect me on bad nights. She's
not to worry about me if I don't come when it
rains or snows."

"Oh, stay with me, Azalea I It's just the
chance I've been wanting. You've never been
in my home except on that funny day when we
all had conniption fits — especially Aunt Adnah.
But, honestly, Aunt Adnah is a brick if you
know her."

76 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Azalea giggled. "Yes, she did seem to have
some of the properties of a brick — hardness, for
example. She hit me between the eyes."

"Well, she'll make it up to you now, if you'll
give her a chance. Of course she wouldn't say
that she wants to make up, but she does."

"I'd just love to stay all night with you," Aza-
lea said. "I'll take the pony back to the Car-
sons' stable, and then we'll walk over to your
house."

"Very well. I'll go with you to the stable."
They put the pony in the stall, and then,
wrapped in their raincoats, tramped along over
the red pine needles to Annie Laurie's home.

"Don't feel at all backward, will you. Aza-
lea?" the other girl said as they stood on the
doorstep. "You just have a little pluck and
everything will come out all right."

Azalea laughed.

"You don't half understand me yet, Annie
Laurie," she said. "You're so much more seri-
ous than I am. I can't help enjoying things even
when they are serious. I know I oughtn't to
feel that way, but I think it will be awfully
funny to see your Aunt Adnah's face when she
finds I've had the impudence to come again."

A RAINY NIGHT ^^

Annie Laurie frowned a trifle. She was not
quite sure she liked to have her aunt regarded
as amusing. However, they went in together.
The door of the grim little parlor was closed,
but the living-room door stood open and Annie
Laurie led the way in. There was an
ugly brussels carpet on the floor, and a center
table covered with a chenille cloth; on it
was the reading lamp, and ranged about it
were comfortable chairs. A black marble clock
ticked noisily on the mantel shelf, and a low fire
smouldered among the ashes. The scrim cur-
tains had many colored figures in them, and
helped to keep out the light of the declining
day. Azalea could not help contrasting it with
the exquisite rooms at The Shoals, and with the
quaint, charming rooms in the McBirney cabin.
She could understand some of the bitter things
that Annie Laurie had said to her — could see
that, somehow, life had been commonplace for
this girl from the first, and that, though she did
not altogether realize it, it was this common-
placeness which made her dissatisfied.

"Wherever can the aunts be?" said Annie
Laurie. "The fire is out in the kitchen, and
there are no signs of supper. LTsually at this

78 ANJNflE LAURIE AND AZALEA

hour, things are humming like a bee hive. Take
off your things, Azalea. I'll hang them up
where they'll dry. You sit right down before
the fire, and I'll bring in some wood."

**But let me help, Annie Laurie."

*'No, no. You're company. I don't often
have company." She went away with Azalea's
things and then came back and stood looking at
her guest with her glowing eyes. "Azalea," she
said intensely, *'I never have company 1"

'Why not?"

"I don't know why not. I'm not supposed to
want it. I'm to study and work, and mend and
practice my music, and be doing something from
early till late. It isn't that they're not kind to
me — my aunts and my father — but they're so
dreadfully serious and conscientious."

"It does throw a damper over everything, be-
ing conscientious like that," mused Azalea.

Annie Laurie looked startled to hear her own
secret idea put in words.

"For goodness sake," she cried, "don't let the
aunts hear you say that!"

Azalea laughed teasingly.

"I'd really like to try that on Aunt Adnah,"
she said.

A RAINY NIGHT 79

Annie Laurie was getting used to her friend,
and she made no reply. She ran upstairs for a
moment, and came down clothed in a warm
brown wrapper, and carrying another one of
equally uninviting color on her arm.

"Slip into this, Azalea," she commanded, "and
let me hang your dress out in the hall near the
heater. There now, lie down on the sofa — so.
I'll lie down too with my head the other way,
and we'll wrap ourselves in my grandfather's
old army blankets. I'm dead tired, aren't you?
I don't see where the aunts are."

She yawned wearily, and Azalea caught the
contagion and stretched her pretty mouth in
imitation.

"Oh, it's cosy, isn't it?" Azalea murmured.
Neither spoke again. Their eyes w^ere fixed on
the smouldering coals, which seemed to hypno-
tize them, and presently they both slept.

Just how long they lay there, comfortably rest-
ing. Azalea could not tell, but when she opened
her eyes the twilight had deepened. Annie
Laurie was still deep in sleep. The fire had
quickened, and by its glow Azalea could see
that some one had entered the room. For a
moment she was startled, but then she saw that

8o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

it was Annie Laurie s father, Simeon Pace; so
she lay still, not liking to speak, since she was
not sure he would know her. He did not see
the two girls on the sofa, and it was quite evi-
dent that he thought himself alone. Azalea
watched him sleepily, and saw him take off his
coat and throw it on the chair. Then he began
twisting his arm in a most inhuman manner, and
Azalea's blood was frozen as she saw him loosen
it at the elbow and lay it beside the coat, until
she chanced to remember about its being mere-
ly a tin substitute for an arm. His next act was
to take a long pocketbook or wallet from the
mantel, draw something from it, stuff it into his
hollow arm and deftly strap the arm into place
again.

"How funny," thought Azalea. "How Jim
will laugh when I tell him about it!"

Then she remembered that she had been un-
intentionally spying, and that it would not be at
all fair to tell what she had seen. She knew Ma
McBirney would not like her to mention any-
thing she had seen under such circumstances.
So she lay as still as a lizard, hardly breathing,
and finally Mr. Pace left the room. A moment
later she heard the two aunts bustling about in

A RAINY NIGHT 8i

the kitchen. There was a poking at the stove,
a lighting of lamps, a rattling of dishes, and
it was evident that the household was being set
in motion again.

"Where are you, Annie Laurie, child?" called
the voice of Miss Zillah. "We've been out to
the sewing circle, and it was so late before the re-
freshments were served that we couldn't hold
our business meeting till after five. Then on the
way home we heard Mrs. Disbrow was worse
and Hannah laid up with a cold and we dropped
in to see them, though I must say they're a shift-
less lot. We thought you and your father
wouldn't mind if supper was a little late. What
you lying there for, child? And mercy me,
how big you look! Why, no wonder, there's
two of you. It's you. Azalea? How do you
do?"

"I'm very well, ma'am," said Azalea rather
shyly. "I hope you didn't mind my coming. It
was so rainy and horrid, Annie Laurie asked
me to spend the night."

"Why, you're as welcome as sunrise, of course.
Sister Adnah, here is Azalea McBirney. She's
come to spend the night with us."

Azalea wondered what was going to happen

82 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

then. Miss Adnah had been quite vicious on
the occasion of her former visit; but the mis-
chievous spirit in the girl made her rather enjoy
the uncertainty. Miss Adnah, she decided,
could do no more than eat her up. But Miss
Adnah was over her bad temper. She came in
holding out her hand gravely.

"It was a wise thing for you to stay in the val-
ley to-night," she said primly. "I'm sure Mrs.
McBirney wouldn't want you to climb the
mountain in such a drizzle."

She avoided committing herself to a mere
piece of flattery. She didn't say she was glad
Azalea was there, but for some reason, the girl
did not feel chilled. She knew Annie Laurie
wanted her, and it seemed to her that as the
daughter of the house, Annie Laurie ought to
enjoy some privileges. However, a few minutes
later, when she was in Annie Laurie's sober, tidy
room, putting on her dress and freshening her
hair, she overheard Miss Zillah saying softly
to Annie Laurie in the next room:

"Sister Adnah thinks you should not invite
anyone to the house without first asking permis-
sion, my dear. As for myself, I'm glad to see

A RAINY NIGHT 83

you have friends and feel free to ask. them, but
it would be well to make certain preparations."

"Not at all, Aunt Zillah," answered Annie
Laurie hotly. "I've never had a girl to stay all
night — never. I asked Azalea because it was
raining. I couldn't tell it was going to rain, or
that I was going to ask her. I'm old enough now
to use some sense, I hope, and I want it so that
I can act without first having a period of fast-
ing and prayer. You and Aunt Adnah were late
to-night — "

"My dear, it is the first time we have been late
to our duties, so far as I can remember, since
we assumed them."

"Oh, you don't understand at all. I'm glad
you were late. Why shouldn't you be, if you
wished? And your duties — why do you speak
of what you do in the house like that? It's not
a duty to live and work and eat and sleep and all.
It's a pleasure. At least, that's the way Carin
and Azalea look at it. What I wanted to say
was that for once you acted on impulse. You
stayed till meeting was out, and you stopped in
to see some sick neighbors. Well, I think that's
fine. Now, I asked my friend to stay all night.
No preparation is needed. The cellar is burst-

84 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

ing with food, the pantry is plumb full of it;
there's milk and cream to float a town and butter
enough to grease all the engines in the world — "

"Annie Laurie!"

"Well, Aunt Adnah wears my patience out.
I'm going to ask my friends here when it seems
best."

"My dear, you know we only ask you to use
judgment."

"Judgment? I don't know what that means.
I'll use hospitality, if you like, and courtesy — "

"To your aunts, among others, I hope."

"Bless your heart!" Azalea heard Annie
Laurie cry softly. "You're a dear, Aunt Zillah.
Was I ever rude to you?"

"Not directly, my dear child. But you some-
times speak of my sister in a manner which I
cannot regard as really respectful."

"Forgive me. Aunt Zillah. I've too much
mustard and pepper in my disposition. But
there's the supper bell. Azalea! Azalea, are
you ready?"

They sat down at a bountiful table, and Sim-
eon Pace folded his hand of flesh and his hand
of tin together and prayed long and loud — some-
thing about the "sundering of joints and mar-

A RAINY NIGHT 85

row." Azalea, who was very hungry, hardly
seemed to get the drift of these words. But she
was startled from her dazed reverie by a sharp
inquiry from Mr. Pace.

"So you two girls were asleep there before
the fire, were you? Did you see me when I
came in?" He turned his large eyes — so like and
yet so unlike Annie Laurie's — upon first one
girl and then the other.

"I didn't," said his daughter.

"And you. Miss Azalea?"

*'I awoke while you were in the room," she
said, feeling somewhat like Jack when he talked
with the Giant Eater.

"So?" he looked at her sharply. "Why didn't
you speak?"

"I — I wasn't sure you'd know me, sir." She
paused a moment and sat steady under the look
he kept upon her. "Anyway, I was just as good
as asleep — half dreaming."

"And you never tell your dreams, I hope?
It's a bad habit."

Azalea smiled at him.

"I never, never tell them, sir," she said.

"Good," cried Simeon Pace. "A sensible girl

86 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

wouldn't, of course. Let me serve you some
meat, Miss Azalea."

And she understood clearly that she had given
a tacit promise that she would not tell what she
had seen; and Simeon Pace felt the reliable
character of her, beneath her soft, girlish aspect,
and trusted her.

CHAPTER V

THE SUMMERS

While they were at supper a strong cold wind
sprung up, so that Mr. Pace had to heap wood
on the fire. And afterward, when the two girls
ran to the door, they could see that the sky had
cleared and the stars were out, looking, it
seemed, unusually large and bright and sociable.

"Why not go to prayer meeting?" said Aza-
lea.

"At your church or mine?"

*'0h, if you don't mind, Annie Laurie, at
mine this time. Dear old Elder Mills is leav-
ing, you know. You've heard how sick he is
with the rheumatism, haven't you? He's going
down to Florida where the climate will be bet-
ter for him. They say he's wonderful these last
few weeks. He's trying to say everything he
can think of that will help the people he's known
so long. I love to hear people talk when they
are really, really in earnest, don't you?"

87

88 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Annie Laurie looked at her friend under-
standingly.

"You are just like me, Azalea; you always
want mountains to be higher than they really
are, and stars brighter, and sermons deeper, and
friends more loving. Nothing is ever quite big
enough to suit me — nor quite hard enough."

"Not intense enough, Carin would say."

"That's it. Yes, let's go to prayer meeting.
I'll ask father if I may."

They presently were on their way, walking
briskly because they were late. The little
Methodist church was full of the old friends
of Elder Mills, who as he stood before them, his
white hair hanging around his shoulders, his face
haggard with pain, yet had a look in his eyes of
exaltation and joy which seemed to make a light
thing of his physical distress.

"Oh, I want you to love one another," he said
during the evening. "I want you to forgive one
another. Be honest, be brave in saying what
you think, live truly, avoid lies. Above every-
thing, avoid lies — in word and in act."

"For goodness sake," thought Annie Laurie,
"Can't preachers find anything else to talk about
but lies? Whether I go to my own church or

THE SUMMERS 89

another, that seems to be the theme." She re-
membered how she had caught Sam Disbrow's
eye that day at the Baptist church when the min-
ister had been talking about lies, and how queer
it had been to realize that she was reading Sam's
mind, and could tell that he, like herself, was
wondering why the preacher kept harping on
that. Annie Laurie's mind drifted off to Sam's
home — to his mother who never was well, to
their untidy little house, and to his cross-eyed sis-
ter, who never would make friends with any-
body. Sam seemed so different from the rest
of the family, with his hearty downright ways,
his energy, his determination to make some-
thing of himself.

Was meeting over? She aroused herself as
from a dream.

"There's to be a business meeting," Azalea
said to her as the people arose. "They're to talk
about who is to be our new minister. Since it is
not conference time, we are to ask for some one
we want, and then if the bishop thinks best we
can have him."

"I see," said Annie Laurie vaguely. Though
she did not really see.

The two girls started out together, crowding

90 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

softly by their elders who were gathered about
in the aisles talking over the trial that had come
to the church in losing Elder Mills, and in being
obliged to bring a new minister in at the middle
of the session. And then, suddenly, a beautiful
idea came to Azalea. Why couldn't they ask
the Rev. Absalom Summers? He was in that
tiny backwoods village where there were so few
to hear or enjoy him ; and he was such a wonder-
ful man, all wrapped up in his religion, and
talking about it as if it must be the business of
everyone. And if he came, her "pretend cousin"
Barbara, his wife, would come also, and that
blessed baby, Jonathan. To think was to act
with Azalea, now as always. She broke from
Annie Laurie and ran up to her old friend and
protector, Haystack Thompson.

"Oh, Mr. Thompson, dear," she whispered,
"if only you could manage to put in a word for
Mr. Summers! You know what he is — how he
talks and sings and laughs and keeps everybody
stirred up. He'd put life into any church,
wouldn't he? He's just wasted down in that
little valley where he lives. Hardly anybody
comes to church, and those who do, don't like

THE SUMMERS 91

him. They think he's too new-fashioned. But
here he'd be appreciated."

"Well, now," drawled Mr. Thompson, run-
ning his hand through his wild head of hair —
the hair that gave him his nickname of "Hay-
stack"— "I don't know but there might be some-
thing in that. He sure has got a lot of ginger in
him, 'the power of the Lord,' he calls it, and I
reckon maybe that's what it is. Anyway, as you
insinuate, Zalie, the Seven Sleepers would have
had a hard time of it trying to keep up their
slumbers anywhere around his neighborhood."

"And then Mrs. Summers," went on Azalea
breathlessly; "think what she would mean to the
church 1 She's so lively, you know, and so inter-
ested in everyone — sorry for them when she
ought to be, and happy with them all other
times."

"Sharin' their sorrows an' their joys with 'em,
I reckon you mean, daughter."

"Yes ; and the baby — "

"Of course, the baby! He'd be a drawin' card
to any congregation."

"Oh, Mr. Thompson, if I could have that
baby around I'd — "

"Yes?"

92 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"I'd — I'd be good all the rest of my days."
"Be a practicin' Christian, eh? Well, as you
say, Summers is a mighty fetching man — don't
know of any with more — well, more radiation.
I reckon I'd better mention him to the breth-
erin. Perhaps the bishop would hear to
his being moved up this a-way — particularly if
I told him you was wantin' to play with the
baby."

Azalea never cared how much fun her kind
old Haystack made of her. He had followed
her over mountains and through valleys, in sun
and rain, in a certain terrible episode of her life,
when she had been stolen away from Mrs. Mc-
Birney and all but forced back into her hateful
life with a traveling show, and she let him joke
and fleer all he pleased, knowing him, as she
did, for one of her staunchest friends.

"Yes, please do," she urged. "They're just
going into meeting now. Just tell them how he
laughs and talks and cuts up!"

"Fine recommendations for a pastor!"
"Well, they are," insisted Azalea. "Of course
they are. He wants everyone to be as good and
happy as he is, and if they aren't, he'll find out
why."

THE SUMMERS 93

Haystack Thompson brought his huge brows
together and regarded Azalea with his sharp
eyes. Neither spoke for a moment. Then : "Yes-
sum," he said, and moved toward the front to
join the representative members of the congre-
gation.

So it came about that a month later Azalea
had the great happiness of knowing that her
friends, the Reverend Absalom Summers and
his wife and baby were coming to Lee as the re-
sult of her suggestion. It was rather a joke
among those who knew of it. "Azalea's choice"
they called the new minister. But it was no joke
to Azalea. It meant more to her than she ever
could explain.

"You see," she said to Carin, "it's ideas that
count — right ideas. Now, I'm a person of no
importance whatever. But because I happened
to have the right idea, those men listened to me
and did what I wanted them to do."

"And the point of it all is," laughed Carin,
"that if you have enough right ideas and can
find enough persons to listen to them, you'll be
important, see?"

"Don't laugh," said Azalea. "If you knew

94 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

what it meant for me to have the Summerses
come — "

"I know well enough — know too well. After
they come, what chance will I have of getting
your attention?"

"Carin, how can you? No one can take your
place. My friends are all separate. I can't
spare one, and not one can take the place of an-
other."

They were in Carin's pony cart as they held
this conversation, on their way down to the sta-
tion, and it seemed as they drove along the one
macadamized road in the county, that everyone
they knew was bent in the same direction.

True, it was nighttime, but the lanterns and
lamps revealed the identity of the travelers.
Amusements were not many at Lee, and the com-
ing of the new Methodist minister and his fam-
ily was an event worthy of notice. Moreover,
the fame of the Reverend Absalom Summers
had gone abroad. His strong bright gifts, his
hearty, brotherly nature, his way of finding noth-
ing too small for his interest or too great for his
inquisitiveness, had won him friends. So they
gathered — these friendly, waiting neighbors —

THE SUMMERS 95

in the draughty little waiting room of the sta-
tion and waited for the nine o'clock train.

The peculiarities of this nine o'clock train
were well known. It had acquired a habit of
arriving at about a quarter of ten, and it was
not until the hands of the clock and of the fre-
quently consulted watches of the male members
approached that hour, that anyone thought of
going out to look up the track. But there it was,
sure enough, faithful to the time it had chosen
for itself. Its flaring headlight could be seen
away up the mountains. The air was nipping,
and the company of watchers shivered together,
but they would none of them go back into the
station now that the headlight really was in
sight.

Moreover, though they would not say so, they
loved to be out among the mountains — those
mountains that were as the very soul of their
lives, that held them together, that gave mean-
ing to their secret motives, to their religion, to
their daily work. They loomed now, darkest
purple against the starry sky. The wind swept
down from them, fresh with an indescribable
freshness. An owl called — was silent — then
called again. Lights shone out from the houses
in the. village, and from the scattered cabins

96 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

along the mountain sides. Now and then there
was a movable light high on the mountain, as
some hill farmer made his way to his house from
a neighbor's, or from his visit to town, or from
looking after his stock.

The headlight disappeared as the train swept
around the horseshoe bend. Then it burst upon
them like a menacing star. It rushed towards
them. There was a shriek as of a giant taken
prisoner. The train was there! The conductor
got down and exchanged greetings, and an enor-
mously tall and thin man appeared, carrying
many bundles.

"There he is! It's the Elder. There's Mr.
Summers," cried the people. They surged for-
ward, pulled the man from the steps, seized
his bundles, and waited while he assisted a little
lady to alight.

"Why, she isn't as large as we are. Azalea,"
whispered Carin.

"I know," Azalea whispered back, quivering
as she hugged her companion's arm. "I told
you — "

But Carin was not to know what Azalea had
told her, for at that moment the voice of the
little lady was heard saying:

THE SUMMERS 97

"And Where's Azalea?"

It was, for Azalea, a thrilling moment. Af-
terward, thinking it all over, she could not tell
why her heart so leaped at that first word. Was
it because she had no kin, really, that this voice
of loving friendship was so sweet to her? Was
it that she was proud — she who had been a
wanderer and a beggar — to be asked for before
all the people? Was it just abounding love for
Barbara Summers, her "pretend cousin"?

It made no difference, really. There was Bar-
bara, her dark eyes shining; there was her babe
in her arms, fresh and wonderful from sleep;
and there was his mother offering him to Aza-
lea.

The two kissed above the baby.

"Honey bunch !" murmured Azalea, and gath-
ered him into her arms.

She saw nothing of how the people came for-
ward to make Mr. Summers and his wife wel-
come; heard nothing of what Pa McBirney said
to them, urging them into his comfortable old
mountain wagon. Even the voice of Carin was
vague in her ears, though she knew she was
murmuring her appreciation of golden curls
and blue eyes, of tiny teeth, of dimples, or chub-

98 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

by little hands. But nothing that anybody could
say would be too much, Azalea thought. Her
hungry heart, never yet satisfied, with all the
love that had come to her, wrapped a thousand
quivering tendrils about this little laughing
child.

"You riding with Miss Carin, Zalie?" asked
Pa McBirney.

"Yes, thank you, father. We'll drive right up
to the parsonage, won't we, Carin?"

"As fast as Mustard can take us," replied
Carin, "The baby won't mind leaving you a
moment, will he, Mrs. Summers?"

Barbara Summers shook her head. She was
not given to passing Jonathan over to the care
of others, but there was something in the satis-
fied expression of Azalea's face that forbade her
to take him away.

Carin turned the head of the little yellow
pony toward the Methodist parsonage. They
had a hill to climb and a dark, curving little
road to traverse. But five or six vehicles were
ahead of them, and Mustard, who felt like a
mere boy in the horse world, and who always
was pleased if he could get in a grown-up affair
of any kind, trotted along importantly. Lights

THE SUMMERS 99

shone out from among the armored pines. Aza-
lea got out and carried Jonathan through the
freshly decorated rooms, with their newly pol-
ished furniture and snowy curtains, to the bed-
room where the little iron cot awaited Jonathan.
"Shut the door, Carin dear," she whispered
happily. "Let's undress him. His mother said
we'd find his nightie in that bag."

CHAPTER VI

SUNDAY

*'Once there was a bear,

And he made his pasture there;

And he crept, and he crept, and he crept,

'Till he got away up there!"

"Gurgle — gurgle — gurgle !"

"And once there was a bear — "

This conversation took place betwen Azalea
McBirney and Jonathan Summers one Sunday
morning while Jonathan's mother was at church.
Azalea had been to Sunday-school, and had run
over to ask her "Cousin" Barbara if she wouldn't
like to attend service to hear her husband
preach. Barbara would — Oh, most undeniably
she would. It was her firm conviction that if
all men could hear her husband, and would give
heed to what he said, they would be able to re-
sist all temptations and would live in peace with
the world. So she kissed Azalea and permitted
her to button her into her pretty golden-brown
frock, and then, clapping her large hat over her

100

SUNDAY loi

wayward hair and putting on her gloves as she
hastened down the street, she was off, her heart
beating high with loving pride of the man whose
life was united with her own, and who had al-
ready found warm friends in his new parish.

Jonathan had been asleep when his mother
left him, but it was not long before he opened
his eyes and looked about him to see whom he
could get to serve him. For Jonathan was, in
his own opinion, the Prince of the World, and
everyone in it was to do his bidding. He pre-
ferred, of course, his chief slave — the one called
"Mamma" — and not seeing her, he opened his
mouth and let out a more or less cheerful roar,
not so much showing rage, as a healthful imita-
tion of it.

Azalea was delighted. She picked him up,
fed him his bottle, arranged him among the sofa
pillows, and then, taking a dimpled hand in her
own, she pointed delicately to the rosy palm.

"Once there was a bear,

And he made his pasture there."

It must have been a particularly small bear to
have pastured in such a tiny pink palm, but Jon-
athan saw nothing inconsistent in it, and re-
marked enthusiastically:

I02 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Gurgle — gurgle — gurgle."

The bear began creeping slyly up Jonathan's
arm. It snuggled for a moment at his elbow,
went on — and Jonathan shivered happily — up
to his shoulder, and then settled right down in
his neck, and seemed to think it a good place
to stay. At least, Jonathan laughed delightedly.

Azalea looked at him with her soul in her
eyes.

"Mercy me," she sighed. "How well I under-
stand kidnappers!"

Then she remembered that she had once been
kidnapped herself, and that she had not liked
it at all.

"Oh, Jonathan," she cried, looking at him
critically, "it seems impossible that anything
as soft and lovely as you are can grow up to be
just a hard, common, big man! If only I could
put you in some kind of a preserve jar and keep
you the way you are, I'd just give anything.
Tired of sitting still? Well, come to Azalea,
and we'll go exploring. It's a pretty house, isn't
it? But my goodness, you ought to have seen it
a little while ago! It was as dull as Monday
washday.

"Then, when it was decided that your papa

SUNDAY 103

and mamma were coming here to live, we all
turned in and worked like sixty to make it look
nice. Haystack Thompson — that's the man that
throws you up so high, you know — prepared it
with his own hands. But you make up your
mind we didn't let him pick out the paper.
Haystack is a dear, but he couldn't be trusted
to pick out wall paper. No, sir, my friends
Carin and Annie Laurie and I did that. Brown
for the sitting room, and green for the dining
room, and pink and pale blue for the bedrooms.
"And we got these pretty print hangings and
covers — at least, Mrs. Carson paid for them and
we picked them out. And Ma McBirney wove
these rugs — brown for the sitting room and
green for the dining room. Aren't they beau-
ties? And Mr. Carson had the furniture done
at his shop — the very best he could make. And
Sam Disbrow, he brought this fern, and some-
body else sent the palm, and Carin gave the pic-
tures, and Annie Laurie made the table cover,
and I don't know what all. You see, some of
these people don't belong to your church at all,
Jonathan. They just gave these things because
you were so sweet that they couldn't bear to have
you come into any but a pretty house. Dear me.

104 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

boy, stop pulling my hair! You treat me just
as if I were a step-child. And I'm not. I'm
your pretend cousin — which is ever and ever
so much nicer than being a real cousin, because
you do your own picking out."

Jonathan replied after his own manner, and
the morning wore on pleasantly. Azalea put
the potatoes and the stew over to cook, and made
some apple sauce. Then she set the table; and
"toted" Jonathan some more. For once she for-
got to think. The sad little thoughts that would
mope around in the back of her mind, because
she was, after all, a child without a father or a
mother, kept entirely out of sight that morning.
She was so busy that she could waste no time
whatever on merely thinking; and the first thing
she knew she saw the people pouring along the
street from church.

Annie Laurie drove by with her aunts and
her father, and waved to Azalea. Sam Dis-
brow walked by with his father, and Azalea
thought what a dull time Sam had of it, with
that heavy looking father with his hanging head
and big, rolling eyes, both going home to a
mother who was always sick, and to that queer
sister of Sam's, who had too much work to do,

SUNDAY los

and who never seemed to want to talk with any-
body. And then the Carson carriage rushed by
with black Ben driving, and Mr. Carson, so
handsome and straight, beside him, and Carin
and Mrs. Carson on the back seat in their beauti-
ful furs, smiling and bowing to everybody.

Then the McBirney wagon came, with Mr.
and Mrs. Summers in with Pa and Ma McBir-
ney and Jim. And Azalea was thanked and
kissed, and had the pain of seeing Jonathan tear
himself away from her to rush to his mother's
embrace, and then Azalea went out and got in
with her foster parents, and Pa McBirney hissed
to his horses in an odd way he had, and they
started for their long drive up the mountain.

"It sure is a mighty curious thing how that
man goes on, Mary," said Mr. McBirney to his
wife as they were driving by the prosperous
dairy farm of Simeon Pace. "He's jest rolling
up money, but no one can tell what he does with
it. Heller, the banker, he says nary a cent of it
comes his way. Pace don't believe in banks —
got stung some time I reckon, and lost his nest
egg by the busting of a bank. Anyhow, he hangs
on to what he gets nowadays. It beats all to
see anyone so old-fashioned. Heller says he sup-

io6 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

poses he hides it away in his old stocking or
buries it in the yard. I suppose I'm something
of a mossback myself, but anyway I know
enough to bank my money when I get it — which
ain't any too often."

*'He don't look like such an old-fashioned
man, Simeon Pace don't," mused Mrs. McBir-
ney. "He certainly does keep his place up right
smart. Them cattle o' his'n is the best to be
seen in the country, and everything around the
place is right up in G."

"Well, old-fashioned he is, but he's far-seeing
too. About five years ago he bought the Caruth
Valley and all the uplying land beyond it. I
couldn't see what his idea was, but now I hear
that he's selling it out to Mr. Carson for five
times what he paid for it. Mr. Carson wants it
for the water power on it. He's adding to his
factory, you see."

"That will mean work for a good many more
of us mountain folks," observed Mrs. McBirney.
"The way Mr. Carson has opened up things
for us is just stirring to think about. I don't
know as his efforts are appreciated, but I, for
one, know who I have to thank when I see the
new things in the house and the good new clothes

SUNDAY 107

we've been able to get for the children. Why,
only this morning I was calling Jim's attention
to it. 'Look at you,' I said, 'in your store clothes
and brown shoes and new overcoat and all. You
look like a rich man's son,' says I. And I de-
clare to goodness when I got out this here new
cloak 0' mine, and this bonnet Mrs. Carson made
for me out of silk velvet and a real ostrich tip,
I could hardly believe it was me. I'm so used
to wearing rusty black that I don't know as I
feel quite at home in good deep black like this
a-here."

Jim McBirney, who was sitting on the back
seat with Azalea, not caring to listen longer to
the conversation of his elders and knowing it
was bad manners to disturb them, began whis-
pering.

"I went to Sam Disbrow's house last evening,
sis." When Jim said "evening" he meant after-
noon.

"Did you, Jim? What was it like?"

"Shades all down — rooms all hot — Mrs.
Disbrow lying on the settle — Hannah sitting by
her, knitting and knitting, and her eyes so crossed
you couldn't think how she could do anything
but cross stitch."

io8 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

iiji.

'I'm sorry for Hannah. That's a dreadful
life to lead — being shut up all the time with a
sick person. I've a good mind to give her a
party if mother will let me."

''Give Hannah Disbrow a party? Why, she'd
run like a hare if she saw anybody coming, and
she'd drop her ice cream and go home crying.
I know Hannah."

He spoke as if he had made girls and their
outlandish ways his particular study.

"Well, anyway, I'm going to see her. And
I'll get the other girls to go."

"Oh, yes, th' other girls! Why, Zalie, you
can't move around by your lone no more; you're
just hitched on to them friends of yours. Ain't
you ever going to have any separate thoughts
again?"

Azalea laughed lightly, and at the chime of
her merriment Mary JMcBirney turned around
to look at the occupants of the rear seat. It was
at such times that Azalea loved her most — when
the light of love flooded her face with its high
brow and soft eyes. It always made Azalea feel
as if there must be a lamp burning there behind
the kind face. She gave a pleasant, inarticulate
murmur that served better than words to let the

SUNDAY 109

children know that her love was round about
them. Then she turned back to resume her con-
versation with her husband, and the horses —
nimble mountain-climbers — pulled on up the
road steadily, stopping now and again to
breathe, and then sweeping around another
curve of the ever winding road.

Azalea amused herself by noticing the little
plateaus or "benches" along the mountain side.
She played a little game with herself, building
imaginary houses in this cove or on that bench
among the maples. There was one place in
particular, where three lofty tulip trees guarded
a spring of cold water, and where there was a
little almost level cove from which one could
look ofif for miles and miles along the purple
valley, where she put first one sort of a house
and then another.

When she began thinking of it, she built — in
her mind of course — a little house of cedar logs,
with an open chamber between, like the one she
now called home; but as time went on she
changed her plans. Barbara Summers had
tried to persuade her that a rambling bungalow
of pine, with high chimneys and wide porches
would be the thing; and Carin had been in favor

no ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

of a cement bungalow with a pergola with
trumpet vines growing over it. Annie Laurie
thought it would be better to have a tent
pitched there, and to eat off wooden plates and
use paper napkins.

''Then you could heave everything into the
fire," said this practical young woman, "and
there'd be no dishes to wash."

As they passed the place this Sunday Azalea
asked Jim what kind of a house he thought it
would be best to put up there, but Jim was not
fond of playing at air castles.

"We-all don't own the land," he said, "and
we ain't got the money for the house, so what's
the use of talking?"

Azalea felt just a trifle out of patience.

"The use of talking," she said rather sharply,
"is that it interests you."

"Keeping still interests me all right."

"Keep still, then, if you want to. I'm sure
I've plenty to think about."

It was then that Mary McBirney began sing-
ing softly:

" 'Sweet are the hillsides, pleasant are the val-
leys, ^
Bright is the sky o'er the home of my heart.' "

SUNDAY III

Both Azalea and Jim knew very well why
she was singing. She never could bear to re-
prove them; and she had a little theory that
music could drive out any evil spirit. Such
music as she made ought to, certainly, the chil-
dren thought, sitting for a moment in silence,
ashamed of their stupid quarrel. Neither one
was of the sort to sulk. Jim gave a little twist
on his seat, and joined in the fourth line:

" 'And my home, gentle friend, is wherever
thou art.' "

Azalea loved the quaint old song. It was one
of many such which Mary McBirney knew.

"I'd love to see the words and music of the
songs you sing, mother," Azalea had said to her
once. "Where can I find them? Are they in
any of the books you have?"

But Mary McBirney had shaken her head
with a smile.

"The mountain folks have many a song that
never yet has been writ down, child," she said.
"In the lonely nights in the little cabins away
back on the mountains, all still and peaceful,
the folks weave the songs out of their hearts.
Grandmothers and mothers and daughters have
sung them, and not one of them all had the

112 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

knowledge to write them down. They make
me think of wild roses. They grow beside the
roadway_, and they are the sweetest of them all."

" 'Early in the morning I can hear the thrushes
singing,' " Mary McBirney sang on, and Azalea,
joining in, put all her love for the sweet woman
into the words :

" 'Dear as the voice that I love best of all.' "

They stopped at the waterfall for the horses
to drink. The cataract leaped down delicately
and gayly from the height above, paused at the
roadway, rippling along among the pebbles at
the edges and rushing between the great boul-
ders in the center of the ford, and then with a
wild laugh plunged oflf over the edge and
foamed down the mountain side. The sky was
rather overcast on this particular day, and the
trees wore a patient look; even the waterfall
seemed subdued, and its rush of sound was more
liquid and less like music than on brighter days.
A heaviness and quietude lay over everything.
But the McBirneys loved the mountain in all
its moods, and little by little they set themselves
to fit in with its whims, so that by the time they
reached their home they were quiet, too.

But they were happy — Oh, most distinctly,

SUNDAY 113

they were that. They loved every inch of the
old place. The cabin of logs, divided in the
center with an open air chamber, the little loft
where Azalea slept, looking up the mountain
side, the Pride of India tree beneath which lay
the graves of little Molly McBirney and of
Azalea's poor mother, the tulip trees at the out-
look, the little smithy, the stable, the barn, the
smoke house, the corn crib, the chicken house
and the bee hives, the pigeon coops and the
swinging gourds where the martins nested, all
were dear to them. Vines, flowers, and bushes
grew all about them. The farm slanted down the
hillside at a dangerous angle, bat contrived to
soak into its produce the sweet Southern sun,
and it gave of its rich bounty in return for
Thomas McBirney's hard toil.

Human care and enthusiasm showed in every
foot of it. Even the most casual passer-by could
see at a glance that here was a home in which
people lived who loved life and each other.

"Happy and good folk live here," it seemed
to say.

And there were, first and last, a good many
to read its message, for it was on the highway
and whoever came over Tennyson Mountain

114 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

down to Lee must pass almost through the door-
way.

This gray, pleasant Sunday, Mrs. McBirney
and Azalea jumped from the wagon at the house
door, and Jim and his father went on to the
stable to look after the horses. The cow was
munching contentedly in her stall, but the chick-
ens seemed a little depressed and in need of their
midday drink of hot water and their feeding of
hot meal. The pigeons cooed chillily from their
cote. As for the horses, they knew almost as
much about unhitching as their betters, and if
either Jim or Mr. McBirney had done anything
they ought not to have done they would have
turned their critical eyes upon them. The real
pride of Jim's heart, however, was the two ponies
which he and Azalea rode to school. They had
been the gift of Mr. Carson to them, and they
were the brothers of Carin's pony. Mustard, and
bore the exciting names of Pepper and Paprika.

Jim lingered for a moment or two, loath to
leave them. He loved the velvet noses of them
the friendly eyes and the warm heaving sides.
They muzzled him, and he put their noses in
his neck and gave them to understand that their
afifection was returned. The cool, damp air

SUNDAY 115

billowing in at the door was delicious, and he
almost hated to go in the house.

"What's the use in living in houses?" he
thought. He had known a young fellow who
traveled over the mountains all the time with
two ponies. One he rode, the other carried his
pack which consisted of a hammock, a frying
pan, some blankets and a square of canvas, out
of which he could, at need, fashion a sort of
tent. He never had slept under a roof since he
was a baby. Jim thought of this boy as a very
fortunate fellow. He chose not to remember
the desperate ill health that had driven the lad
into the life. However, he must go in the house,
he must! Ma had got the fire going in the kit-
chen, judging from the smoke that rolled from
the chimney. Well, he was glad he didn't have
to build it. He didn't feel like doing anything
just then — except, perhaps, sitting by the door
and looking off at the valley. Usually when he
wanted to do this, some one straightway thought
of some chore for him. So he slid softly onto
the bench, sitting where he could be seen neither
from the door nor the window, and fell into a
comfortable though somewhat hungry day
dream.

ii6 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Meantime, odors of frying chicken were
wafted to him, along with the smell of slightly
burned corn cake and very good coffee. The
odors grew stronger and pleasanter and after
a time Jim decided that he wasn't doing right
to stay outside while everyone was working in
the house. It really was his duty to go in. So
in he went. The fire was leaping, the table was
set, his mother was bustling around in her calico
dress, Azalea was putting the chairs to the table,
and his father looked ready primed for a long
Sunday grace.

It proved to be even longer than Jim had
feared. Thomas McBirney was one of those
who count it a fault if they neglect to mention
every event of their lives to the Almighty. He
thanked the Lord for their united family, for
food and fire, for roof and friends, for the privi-
lege of attending divine service, and for the
love of God which warmed their hearts. Mean-
time his son's eyes wandered restlessly from the
heaped plate of chicken to the bowl of gravy
and "fixin's." He wondered if he would have
no more than a "drumstick" and why there
should be such intimate relations between boys
and drumsticks. The world over, fathers

SUNDAY 117

seemed to think they should go to their sons.
No doubt Chinese fathers held just the same
opinion.

Imagine then, his surprise — his unbelieving
surprise — when his father, having first served
his mother and Azalea, took the "wish-bone,"
beautifully burdened with tender white meat
and laid it on Jim's plate.

"For a good boy," he said, as he heaped on the
potatoes and gravy, and passed the corn bread.
"Once in a while, Jim, we men folks have to
set ourselves against these here women, eh?
Them with their wishbones! Who said they
was to eternally have the wishbones? No king
that ever I hearn tell of. I say, let's head a
revolution and declare that they ken have only
every other wishbone. That's fair, ain't it?"

A nice, warm feeling gathered in Jim's heart.
It was splendid to have a dad like that — a dad
who could tell what was going on in a fellow's
mind. And his mother and Azalea seemed to
be glad he had the wishbone, too. They were
looking at him just the way a fellow likes to
have his family look at him. My, what a nice
day Sunday was! And wasn't he glad he had
helped haul those hickory logs! And wasn't

ii8 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

the room nice, with the settle there next the fire,
and the old clock tickin', tickin' away, and strik-
ing now and then with a voice like Haystack
Thompson's when he led in prayer. And there
was a white table cloth on for Sunday, and Ma
was smiling almost the way she used before
Molly died. And the cat was stretching herself,
and outside, Peter, the hound, was sniffling to
let them know he was there and hadn't had his
dinner yet.

"Goodness gracious," sighed Jim, "ain't it
lucky we're all alive!"

CHAPTER VII

THE SIGNAL

Night came down sweetly over the mountain
that quiet day. It wrapped the village in soft
gray folds ; the stars came out hazily and shone
with a misty golden light; the wind merely
whispered in the pines and the hemlocks, and
the sound of the falling water was lonely and
sad in the ears of Azalea.

Yet she had to be out in the night because —
well, that's a secret. At least it was a secret from
Jim. Because he would have laughed. She
was to signal the other two girls. It had been
agreed upon.

"You see, I nearly die, Sundays," Annie
Laurie had said. "Our house — really I can't
describe our house on Sunday. I feel as if my
heart were turning into old red sandstone."

To have the strong-beating heart of Annie
Laurie turn into structural rock was something
the friends could not permit. Anyway it would

be an excellent thing for Azalea in the moun-

119

120 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

tain to know that her friends in the valley were
doing well. She could tell if they were doing
well, if the lantern was waved sideways; if any-
thing was wrong it was to be swung up and
down.

"But I reckon you-all had better not swing
it up and down," she had said, "for though I'll
know by that that something is wrong, of course
I won't know what it is. And the waiting to
find out would be dreadful."

"It will have to be a pretty dreadful 'some-
thing' to make us give the bad signal, won't it,
Annie Laurie?" Carin had remarked.

So it was with a light heart and a mysterious
manner that Azalea, who was supposed to leave
the kitchen-l'iving room to go to her own little
loft, stole out the back way, took the lantern
from its nail, lighted it, and crept to the out-
look. She had five minutes to wait before the
time appointed, and these moments proved to
be a "perfect caution" for slowness. She counted
the seconds to make sure — and yet was not sure,
for she managed to get in about two counts and
a half to each second. However, at last she felt
justified in bringing out her light from behind
the tree bole where she had hidden it, and wav-

THE SIGNAL 121

ing it back and forth in enthusiastic announce-
ment that all was right. She couldn't help
thinking with a throb of the heart how very,
very right it all was! How sweet the day had
been ; how filled with comfort for body and soul ;
how beautiful to be loved as she was loved in
that little home I Of course she might have
repined that she had not been made Carin's
adopted sister and surrounded with all manner
of luxuries, but the love she felt for Mrs. Mc-
Birney was too deep, too sincere, to permit such
a thought to have a place in her heart for very
long.

Yes, her home was a log cabin, and her family
simple mountain people. But she could not
feel cheated. The taste of the Things That
Were was sweet on her palate, and her hope for
the future bubbled in her heart as the spring,
whose whispering she could hear, bubbled from
the ground.

So back and forth in the gray air went her
lantern, saying:

*'A11 is well! All is well!"

Azalea actually laughed aloud to think of
Carin, all in her Sunday best, stealing out of
that stately drawing-room and creeping up the

122^ ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

stairs to the huge cupola and standing there on
the roof in the wind and night, waving her lan-
tern. What fun it was to know a girl like that —
a girl who wasn't afraid to do things, if she ivas
rich and beautiful. There was some "go" in
Carin, no doubt about it, though she did look so
delicate and alabasterish. Azalea loved to invent
words, and she invented "alabasterish" on the
moment.

But what di^ that mean? Annie Laurie's lan-
tern, full and strong and like a star, had shone
through the light mist and was being waved
frantically up and down. Mercy! how it waved.

"All is wrong! All is wrong!" it protested.

What could that mean? Carin, of course,
would know in a few minutes. She would tele-
phone. But Azalea had no telephone and she
would not be allowed to ride to the valley at
night.

"All is wrong — oh, very, very, wrong!" the
lantern kept on saying.

What could she do to let Annie Laurie know
that she understood? Poor Annie Laurie, who
was brave about everything! It was a real
trouble, Azalea felt sure. Had one of the aunts
fallen and broken a bone? Could Mr. Pace be

Back and forth went her lantern, saying :
"All is well! All is well!"

THE SIGNAL 123

ill? Were the cattle poisoned? Azalea took
her lantern and twisted it around and around
until it must have looked to Annie Laurie like
a snare of fireflies. Then Carin, understanding,
did the same thing. After that it was dark on
Carin's roof; then Annie Laurie's lantern dis-
appeared too. They had gone to the telephone,
Azalea inferred.

She stamped back through the dew, hot with
impatience. "I shan't sleep a wink to-night,"
she declared.

She undressed in anguish of soul, sank on her
knees and sent up a fervent prayer for her
friend, and then throwing herself on what she
expected and desired to be a sleepless bed, fell
fast asleep. ^

Yet in her sleep she had many dreams, and in
each of them Annie Laurie appeared, always in
some horrid plight. Now wolves were chasing
her; now she had fallen over the cataract; now
the horses were running away with her; now
she was speeding down the road again, away
from the scorn of her schoolmates, and little
drops of blood were falling on the road from
her shattered heart.

But none of these things were anywhere near

124 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

the truth, though nothing could be more
terrible to Annie Laurie than what actually had
happened.

It had come about after church. Dinner was
over; the house had been tidied, and the two
aunts and Mr. Pace and Annie Laurie sat in the
sitting room before a fine fire. The aunts had
taken out their pious books and were reading
them. Mr. Pace was engaged in plodding sleep-
ily through somebody's account of the "Thirty
Year's War." As for Annie, she was supposed
to be writing to a friend, but as a matter of fact
she was scribbling some verses which she meant
to show to the girls the next day. Nibbling the
end of one's pen is more or less of a necessity
when one is writing verses, and Annie Laurie,
having got as far as that — and not much farther
— was sampling the fine inky flavor of hers, and
so chanced to look up and to let her glance fall
on her father.

At first she was only conscious that his expres-
sion was not quite familiar to her. Then — well,
then suddenly and terribly, she saw that he was
indeed changed — that something frightful had
happened to him. She sprang toward him, call-
ing his name.

THE SIGNAL i^i,

"Father— father!"

But no answer came.

The aunts came running, terror in their faces.

"Paralysis," said Miss Adnah. "Zillah, call
the doctor. Azalea, help me lay him down —
yes, on the floor. Open the window. Go get
his bed ready, Zillah, after you've got the doctor.
We and the doctor between us must get him in
bed."

Annie Laurie did all she was told. She
couldn't realize what had happened. Something
seemed to be whirling around and around in
her brain, and all it said was:

"Isn't Aunt Adnah wonderful? Isn't Aunt
Adnah wonderful?"

She was indeed a general in times of trouble.
Why, once when she was young — but there isn't
time to tell Aunt Adnah's story now.

There was time for nothing, it seemed. It had
come like a lightning-flash. Even the doctor
was unable to aid. Simeon Pace lay in his bed,
looking at them with tortured eyes. It seemed
to Annie Laurie that he was trying to make her
understand something — with all his vanishing
power he was trying to give her some important
piece of information. She put her ear to his

126 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

lips; she listened with the very ears of her soul;
but the thing he wished her to know went into
silence with him. A dread convulsion brought
the end.

Annie Laurie, standing aghast, knew she was
fatherless as well as motherless. Yet it couldn't
be! Why, only a little while before everything
had been well. Had been well I That reminded
her of the signal they were to send — the signal
that was to remind each member of the Girl's
Triple Alliance that they had not forgotten each
other. And they had agreed not to send the
"bad" message unless something very terrible
happened. They had laughed about it! And
now the terrible thing really had happened. Or
had it? Was it, perhaps, only a frightful dream?
But no, it was true — and her heart ached so! If
only the girls knew! Well, she would tell them.
She sat near the clock, watching it. Perhaps
when she let the girls know, her throat wouldn't
ache so with that new, strange, crushing pain.
Perhaps her eyeballs would cease burning.
How busy it seemed around the house! People
were coming and going. They stopped to speak
to her, and she found herself saying mechanic-
ally:

THE SIGNAL 127

"Yes, I know. You are very kind. To-mor-
row I'll understand better. Thank you — to-mor-
row."

Out of sheer compassion they left her alone.

Seven o'clock. It was time for the signal.
She found the lantern and made her way, un-
seen, to the roof. Azalea's light shone at her
from the gray air, far, far up the ridge. Carin's
light flashed from the roof of the mansion. All
was well with them. They were laughing —
Annie Laurie knew they were laughing. And
she — she waved her lantern up and down and
up and down with a kind of passion. She must
make them know how deep was the sorrow that
had befallen her. And they seemed to know.
It was as if she could feel the streams of their
sympathy rolling toward her. Yes, they under-
stood. That queer fluttering of their lanterns
assured her of it. Annie Laurie left her roof
and descending into the attic, sank on an old set-
tle there. She dragged a horse blanket over her
and at last the storm of her anguish broke, and
she wept and wept.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MYSTERY

Was it a long time — weary hours and hours
— before Annie Laurie found her way down
the stairs? She never could be sure. A man,
whom she did not at first recognize, was leaving
her father's room. For a second she felt like
rushing at him to tell him that he, a stranger,
should not be in there — in that sacred chamber
where her father lay dead and defenseless. Then
she saw that it was Mr. Disbrow, the under-
taker, and realized what his task had been. He
had been making her father ready for his last
resting place.

But surely the man was not ashamed of his
task! He shot one glance at Annie Laurie, and
then without speaking, hastened down the stairs
and out of the front door. Was he sorry for her
and at a loss to say how sorry, and so had run
away? Annie Laurie could understand that.
She would have felt much the same way herself.

Yet it was, she decided, an odd way for a man to

128

THE MYSTERY 129

feel who was so often in the house of mourning
as an undertaker naturally would be. How-
ever, it mattered little. She was glad he hadn't
spoken to her. And yet, when she thought of
him as Sam's father, it was curious that he hadn't.
Of course it might be that he knew nothing of
the good friendship which existed between Sam
and herself, and he might not approve of it any-
way. The Disbrows were great for keeping to
themselves. So were the Paces, but the Paces
were busy folk; they liked their neighbors even
if they didn't see much of them. But one always
had the feeling that the Disbrows shut them-
selves away from society because they had some-
thing against it — nobody quite knew what. Only
Sam — Sam was different. He was made to live
in the world and to enjoy it.

A vision of him, wide-shouldered, brown-
haired — his hair would have curled a trifle if he
had not continually discouraged it — brown-eyed,
smiling, frank, energetic, arose before Annie
Laurie. He had a ringing laugh, and the neigh-
bors said he dared to laugh even in that silent
shut-up house where his mother lay on her sofa,
with mouse-like, cross-eyed Hannah watching
beside her. It came over Annie Laurie that

I30 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

she had disliked them for things that were none
of their fault. Mrs. Disbrow couldn't help be-
ing ill; Hannah couldn't help being cross-eyed;
and it was beautiful of her to be always beside
her mother.

Yet, as she paced the floor of her bedroom
thinking about her father, with her tortured
thoughts leaping this way and that as if
they were struggling to escape from sorrow, a
conviction came over her that sickness often was
the fault of the person who suffered from it.
She knew that an atmosphere of gloom hung
over Sam's house; that if he opened up the win-
dows Hannah was told to close them; if he
brought in flowers they had to be thrown out
because they gave his mother a cold; if he built
a fire in the fireplace for cheerfulness, it was
considered unsafe, owing to a defect in the chim-
ney. The stove was sufficient — and indeed more
than sufficient, since the temperature of the room
was at least eighty the winter through. Poor
Sam! Annie Laurie knew that he had suggested
that the chimney be mended so that they might
sometimes sit by the open fire, letting the raging
stove subside; he had urged Hannah to have
an operation that would set her eyes straight,

THE MYSTERY 131

but the family had been too fearful of the re-
sults. So they sat in gloom and hideousness
within their power to remedy. At least that
was how it looked to Sam's impatient, energetic
nature, and Annie Laurie took the same view.

Miss Zillah came in after a time, with arms
and words of comfort for her girl.

"Carin called up about seven o'clock," she
said, after a time when Annie Laurie had wept
out her grief on her good aunt's shoulder. "She
seemed to know you were in trouble, though I
don't understand how she could have found out."

Annie Laurie told her of the signalling.

"Well, she wanted to come right over to you,
but I told her to wait until to-morrow. Was I
right?"

Annie Laurie nodded.

"Get undressed now, poor one," soothed Aunt
Zillah. "See, I'll open your bed and warm it
for you. Put on this flannel nightgown, that's
a dear. And I'll bring you a glass of milk —
unless you want something heartier."

It was wonderful, being petted like this. She
had led a chilly life, had Annie Laurie. She
had known kindness, but not, it must be con-
fessed, warm love. Yet now Aunt Zillah's com-

132 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

passion and affection wrapped her about like a
cloak. How did the old song run?

"Come under my plaidie, the night's gaun to

fa';
Come in frae the cauld blast, the drift and the

snaw;
Come under my plaidie and sit down beside me,
There's room in't, dear lassie, believe me, for
twa."

Yes, she would get in under Aunt Zil-
lah's plaidie and she would let the dear old lady
know that she was grateful to her for having
asked her. So, when she had drunk the warm
fresh milk and been tucked in her bed, she put
her arms around Aunt Zillah's wrinkled neck
and gave her a long, long hug.

"We'll never, never go back on each other,
will we?" she whispered tremulously.

"Never, lass, never," responded the old lady,
the tears dripping from her eyes on Annie
Laurie's upturned face. So, sweetened by a sor-
row, which was after all but a natural and right
sorrow such as must come to all, Annie Laurie
sank into the dead sleep of grief.

The next few days were blurred and strange.
Friends came to the house. Flowers arrived in

THE MYSTERY 133

boxes. There were many telephone messages.
The aunts were called up from the telegraph
office. There was business to do at the cemetery ;
arrangements to make at the church. Through
it all, Annie Laurie strove to do her part. There
would be time enough for grieving afterward,
she decided. The thing now was not to let too
heavy a burden fall on her aunts, who were, as
Annie Laurie seemed to discover for the first
time, really getting to be old ladies.

But at last it all was over. The house was
quiet and peaceful. And the help on the farm
came to Miss Adnah for instructions.

It must have been three days after the funeral
that Mr. Carson called one afternoon and asked
to see Annie Laurie and her aunts. It was like
him, in his thoughtfullness to include her, Annie
Laurie thought. She did not know that Charles
Carson, who liked almost everybody and who
had the best will in the world toward all man-
kind, nevertheless, knowing as much of human
nature as he did, thought it best to take her at
once into council concerning matters that would
affect her future life.

He was received in the stifif little parlor, the
two sisters sitting opposite him in prim dignity,

134 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

and Annie Laurie instinctively putting her chair
near his.

"I am sure you will pardon me for speaking
to you concerning your affairs," he said in his
hearty way. "I would not venture to do so un-
invited, were it not a matter that in a way con-
cerns me also."

"Yes, sir," said Miss Adnah and Miss Zillah
in unison. Annie Laurie fixed her reddish-
brown eyes upon him with devotion, and said
nothing.

"The day before Mr. Pace died," he went on,
"I paid him twenty thousand dollars in cash,"

Annie Laurie stared; the sisters started.

"It seemed to me foolish enough to pass such
a sum of money over in simple currency, but as
you probably know, your brother" — he was now
addressing himself to the elder ladies — "had a
prejudice against banks. I wished to give him
my check. He said he had no use for checks.
He wanted money. It was a curious idiosyn-
crasy of his, but since he wished it that way I
humored him. He put the roll of bills into his
pocket — I paid the money to him at Mr. Heller's
bank — and drove away with it. That was Sat-
urday afternoon. He died Sunday. I have

THE MYSTERY 135

come to inquire — with only neighborly motives,
I beg you to believe — whether or not you have
seen anything of that roll of bills."

There was a slight pause. Then:

"I have seen nothing of it, sir," said Miss
Adnah.

"Nor I, sir," added Miss Zillah.

''Oh, and there must have been more money,"
broke in Annie Laurie, "much, much more! I
know papa always had a lot, Mr. Carson, but I
haven't an idea where he kept it. None of us
had. If we ever asked him for money he would
go away for a time and presently come back with
the bills he meant to give us. He had some
place where he hid it, and I used to think he
ought to tell some one of us where it was."

"I should think so, indeed," said Mr. Carson
rather heatedly. "Then you haven't any of you
a notion where he kept his funds?"

"Not an earthly ideal" cried Annie Laurie.

"We haven't the faintest notion, sir," said Miss
Adnah. "I will confess now that sister and I
got up in the night — last night it was — and
looked everywhere in his room. We even lifted
the edges of the carpet and took the back ofif the
steel engravings. We looked, of course, in the

136 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

bureau, and the chest and the closet. We found
nothing. It was our intention to begin to-night
searching in the other rooms of the house."

"But why in the night, ladies?"

Miss Adnah looked rather offended, as if Mr.
Carson had gone a little too far in asking such
questions. But Miss Zillah broke out with:

"Oh, you see, sir, it seemed so silly and ab-
surd for us to have to do a thing like that. My
opinion is that brother Simeon should have kept
up with the times and used a bank like other
men. I hate to have the neighbors know what
trouble and embarrassment he has put us to."

Miss Adnah looked at her sister in amaze-
ment. She, who was so gentle of judgment
and of speech, was actually criticising a Pace —
and her own dead brother at that! But Mr.
Carson turned a look of appreciation on the
flushed little face of the old lady.

"The Paces are not all cranks, anyway," was
his thought. "This Miss Zillah seems a very
sensible sort of a woman — quite fit to be related
to Annie Laurie."

The reflection would have surprised Miss
Adnah very much had she known of it, for she
regarded herself as a person of singular good

THE MYSTERY 137

sense. Indeed, she secretly thought that she
had, so far as the Paces were concerned, rather
a monopoly of it. Zillah she regarded as some-
thing of a dreamer, too sentimental, or "soft,"
as she put it, by half; and she felt very disap-
proving when she heard her pass uncompliment-
ary judgment upon one of the family. That was
a privilege which Miss Adnah reserved for her-
self.

"You see, sir," Miss Zillah went on, blurting
out a family secret which Miss Adnah would
have starved rather than let anyone know, "we
haven't a cent in the world. The small amount
which my sister and I had in our purses has
been used up during the last few days. We owe
for all the expenses of our brother's funeral.
Really, I may say that we don't know which
way to turn."

"My dear Miss Zillah," responded Mr. Car-
son, "I will place a sum of money at your dis-
posal immediately."

Why, Miss Adnah wondered, did he turn to
Zillah instead of to her? It seemed to her that
it ought to be evident to anyone that she was
now the head of the house.

"Moreover," Mr. Carson went on, "I will de-

138 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

posit the sum in the bank and send you the bank
book. I know this will be more in accord with
your ideas."

There was a little twinkle in his eye as he
said this, but Miss Zillah did not catch it. She
was really much flattered that he should think
her a person capable of conducting things in a
businesslike way, and she would not have shown
by the flutter of an eyelash how frightened she
really was at the suggestion.

"Then," continued Mr. Carson, "our next
business will be to find that money. I propose
that you call in one or two trusty neighbors, not
given to gossiping, and that they assist you in
looking over the premises. The money must
be here somewhere. It merely devolves on us
to find it."

Miss Adnah made a gesture of distress.

"I don't believe, sir," she said, "that you can
have any notion of how intensely distressing it
is to us to do such a thing. And I may say that
we have no neighbors who wouldn't gossip. If
you have any such, please show them to me."

Annie Laurie, who knew her Aunt Adnah's
tempestuous nature, saw that a storm was ris-
ing, and she cast about for a way of diverting it.

THE MYSTERY 139

''Aunt Adnah," she broke in, "let Azalea
and Carin help us hunt. You know if it's a
secret they'll never, never, tell it. We've pledged
ourselves to keep each other's secrets, you see.
And no one can look as hard as we girls can.
We're like ferrets."

"An excellent idea, Miss Pace," said Mr. Car-
son, nodding at Aunt Adnah. "Let the mem-
bers of the Triple Alliance have a hand at it.
It will seem natural enough for Annie Laurie's
friends to be here with her in her trouble; the
girls will tell nothing; and their keen young
wits are the best ones imaginable to set at this
task."

Upon consultation it struck the sisters that this
would be the case. Bad as it would be to have
three "young-ones" ranging over their orderly
house, tearing up this and that, they would at
least take the thing only as a sort of game. They
wouldn't be ill-natured and sneering about it
as their elders might be.

So it was agreed that they would accept Mr.
Carson's offer of a generous loan of money, and
that on Saturday the three girls were to start in
under the direction of the Misses Pace, and
make a search of both house and yard.

I40 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Their eyes certainly are sharper than ours,
Adnah," Miss Zillah said.

"Yes," snapped Miss Adnah, worn and weary
with the difficulties of life, "they're sharp
enough. Oh, Zillah, Zillah, why should we
Paces be humiliated like this?"

"No humiliation about it, sister," Miss Zillah
replied. "Take things a little easier, Adnah; let
some one help us out. We're very much shaken
— very much shaken, indeed. We're getting old,
and we've had a great sorrow. If folks want to
help, why let 'em."

There was no doubt about it, they were shaken.
The excitement and courage that had borne
them up at first, failed them as the week went on.
Miss Adnah, who had felt herself so able to at-
tend to the business of the farm, not only found
it beyond her power to give an order, but she
found it impossible to fix her mind on the book-
keeping, which was a necessary part of the busi-
ness. Annie Laurie had been obliged to consult
with the help after her school hours, and to
straighten out the accounts as best she could dur-
ing the evening. They felt the need of a strong,
quiet man of afifairs — a good, reliable overseer
— but the men who were helping them were not

THE MYSTERY 141

of that sort, and they knew of no one in the coun-
try who seemed to meet their need.

Saturday morning by nine o'clock, according
to Annie Laurie's invitation, Azalea and Carin
arrived on their ponies. These being given to
the stable men, the two girls, in no little awe at
entering a house of sorrow, came in to pay their
respects to Miss Zillah and her sister. The two
sat shivering before the fire, tearful and nervous,
and even Miss Adnah was now willing to give
over the search for their lost fortune into the
hands of these respectful and sympathetic girls.

"At first, my dear girls," said Aunt Zillah
brokenly, "it seemed as if we couldn't let anyone
in to help us and it's hard enough now, but we'd
rather it would be you than anyone."

"Oh, Miss Zillah," cried Azalea in her im-
pulsive way, "we understand just how you feel.
But Annie Laurie's fortune just must be found,
mustn't it? Why, it's a quest, you know. A
sacred quest — like you read about."

That glow which was Azalea's greatest
charm, lit up her dark face and Miss Zillah felt
that here was a girl who was one of them. She
need fear nothing from her. As for that sweet-
faced Carson girl, with her golden hair and her

142 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

lovely voice, how could anyone do anything but
trust her? Yes, it was all as it should be. They
were old women and must give their cares into
the hands of others.

So the three girls began their never-to-be-for-
gotten search for Annie Laurie's lost fortune.

Although the aunts had gone over the dead
man's room, they thought best to begin there.
So thorough was their search that they even
ripped open the lining of his coats; they looked
in his shoes; they investigated his hat linings.
Nothing was found.

Then they searched the hallways, the pantries
and cupboards. They looked throughout the
parlor, through the living room, through the
kitchen. They had one of the men in to pull up
the window sills. They took the bricks from
the hearth. Nightfall found them wearily
searching the dusty debris in the old attic.

Sunday was a day of rest for all of these peo-
ple, but it was very, very hard for them to sit in
idleness while their imaginations were rioting
through the Pace property, searching out every
corner and cubbyhole for the lost money. Nat-
urally enough, Monday found the girls in no
condition to settle down to their studies, and as

THE MYSTERY 143

Mrs. Carson said, it was so much more impor-
tant that the money should be found than that
they should learn a lesson or two, that they were
excused from school and permitted to resume
their search.

The yard was their point of attack this morn-
ing. They looked over every inch of it, but
nowhere did they see anything save the hard,
frozen surface. No hollow tree offered a place
for hiding. The solid substructure of the house
forbade them to hope for anything there. Next
they went to the barns, the stables and out-
houses, but here the prospect was discouraging
indeed.

"Besides," said Annie Laurie, "when papa
wanted to get money for any purpose he always
went to his own room and locked the door. It
seemed as if he must have kept it with him."

"But how can that be," argued Carin, drop-
ping white and worn into her chair — they were
in Annie Laurie's room, — "when nothing has
been found anywhere about his clothes? Why,
the only pocketbook he appeared to have was
that little one for silver. Didn't you ever see
him with a large leather pocketbook, Annie?"

"Never," said Annie Laurie. "Never."

144 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"But now, when papa paid him that twenty
thousand dollars," Carin insisted. "Do you sup-
pose he brought that home in his hand the way
a child would a penny, or rolled it up in his
pocket where it could fall out any minute? It
doesn't seem reasonable; honestly it doesn't."

And then, suddenly. Azalea had a vision. She
saw a man come into a dark room — a room
lighted only by a flickering fire. She saw him
lay aside his coat, unscrew his tin arm, take
something from the mantel shelf, place it within,
then replace the arm and the coat. She remem-
bered how he had asked her if she ever dreamed,
and how she had said she never told her dreams,
and he had said that was right. And she had
remembered the look that had gone from him
to her and back again — a look which was a prom-
ise on her part not to tell what she had seen and
a message from him of confidence in her. She
sat rigid, going over the scene again before she
spoke. When she did the girls hardly recog-
nized her voice.

"I know!" she said — not very loud.

"You know?" The others cried it together.

"He kept his money in his tin arm."

"No!"

THE MYSTERY 145

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

*T saw him put some there once."

"When?"

"Where?"

"The night Annie Laurie and I fell asleep on
the sofa."

"Tell me more, 'Zalie."

"Yes, yes, I will. I'll tell you everything.
Oh, Annie Laurie, was the tin arm buried with
him?"

"No — no, I'm sure it wasn't. It was hanging
on a nail in his bedroom the day after he was
buried, but the aunts couldn't bear to see it there
and they carried it to the attic."

"Then the money couldn't have been in it after
all."

"Oh, it might still be there. Let's go see."

Up to the attic they went, trembling with
eagerness. There, sure enough, from a beam
hung the tin arm. Annie Laurie could not quite
bring herself to touch it. It seemed almost like
a part of her father. But Azalea took it down,
convinced that she was right. She looked into
it; carried it to one of the windows and looked

146 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

again. She ran her fingers into the hand of it.

She turned her disappointed face toward her
friends. There was nothing there.

"All the same," she said with earnestness, "it
was there."

"But then some one has taken it out."

"That's it," said Carin. "Some one has taken
it out."

"Not the aunts!" cried Annie Laurie, fiercely.

"Oh, mercy no," agreed Azalea, "not the
aunts."

"But who else handled the arm?" asked
Carin.

Annie Laurie stood thinking. Then a deep
flush spread over her face.

"I — I don't — who else could have?" she stam-
mered. She couldn't bear to place anyone under
suspicion.

But Azalea was more impulsive.

"Why Mr. Disbrow, the undertaker, of
course," she said. "He must have taken it ofif.
He must have — " she stopped and the three
stared at each other.

And then Annie Laurie remembered how he
had crowded by her in the hall, not speaking,
and looking the other way.

CHAPTER IX

THE DISBROWS

The three girls made up their minds to tell
no one of their suspicions concerning the dis-
appearance of Simeon Pace's money. But Aza-
lea could not but talk it over with Pa McBirney,
and Thomas McBirney could not resist cogitat-
ing about the matter with Haystack Thompson,
and he, in turn, was impelled to go with it to
his trusted pastor, Absalom Summers. And
Absalom whispered it to his Barbara, and Bar-
bara— but perhaps she told no one. In look-
ing the matter over afterward, she was almost
sure that she had told no one. At least she
hadn't told of it right out. And Carin spoke
of it only to her father; and he mentioned it
merely to the banker Heller, and he only spoke
of it to his fellow officers in the bank, and they
told no one but their intimate friends.

As for Annie Laurie, she refrained with a
mighty effort from confiding her suspicions to
her aunts, and she warned her friends not to tell

147

148 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

them. Had they mulled that matter over and
over during the long, lonely winter evenings,
the poor girl would have felt as if she were losing
her reason as well as her fortune. Indeed, the
winter had settled down heavily over the Pace
household. The dairy met with reverses. Two
of the best cows died. The accounts would
not balance. And worst of all, the helpers
were hard to manage and would not take orders
willingly from Miss Adnah. The strong will
and hand of Simeon Pace were sorely missed.
And along with all this distress was the sense
that Annie Laurie and her aunts had of burn-
ing injustice. Somewhere in the world was
money in abundance, belonging to them. Just
how much it was they could not even guess. Of
Mr. Carson's purchase money of twenty thou-
sand dollars they felt sure. He had Simeon
Pace's receipt to show for that. But there was
other money beyond question — the savings of
years. The old aunts, waking in the night, would
arise and fumble in the places in which they had
looked so often; and Annie Laurie, strong and
sensible as she was, found that it required all
of her will to keep from following their ex-
ample.

THE DISBROWS 149

This girl, so straightforward, so energetic and
hopeful by nature, found it almost intolerable to
sit around, patient under injustice. She pro-
posed to Mr. Carson that he should go to Hector
Disbrow and accuse him of the theft of the
money — tell him the whole thing was known,
and that he must refund it or be arrested. But
Mr. Carson shook his head.

"As a matter of fact, my dear," he said, "the
thing isn't known at all. It is only surmised.
Azalea, in semi-darkness, thought she saw your
father put something in his arm. She may have
been mistaken. Or even if she were not mistaken
about his doing so on that particular occasion, it
doesn't in the least follow that your father car-
ried the money in question there. Above all, it
does not follow that it was in the arm the day of
his death; or that, even if it was there, that the
undertaker stole it. The tin arm must have
hung in the room for days. Many persons visited
that room. Any one of them might be guilty."

"Then is there nothing at all that can be done,
sir?"

"Nothing at present. I am watching Disbrow
— indeed, I may say the whole community has

I50 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

him under suspicion. If he is guilty be sure
that sooner or later it will come out."

"But here we are, getting deeper and deeper
in debt to you!"

*'Annie Laurie, I am convinced that every
cent I have advanced you will be paid back to
me in time. You are a brave girl. I trust you
completely. I feel that you are going to make a
success of life. Meantime, you are living on
borrowed capital. B/ut so are thousands of
others. Back of it all, you must remember, is
the fine farm as security. It is a perfectly clear
business proposition. Have no fears, child."

She strengthened under the tone he used in
speaking to her. If he had pitied her, she would
have broken down, but he merely put it to her
that she was playing her part in the world, and
she braced herself to play that part well and not
disappoint him or any of her other friends.

She tried to avoid Sam Disbrow, yet it seemed
to be her luck to meet him oftener than usual.
He was very sorry for her, she could see, and
he assumed his brightest and heartiest manner
when he was with her, in his efforts to help her
to be happy.

One day when there was a feeling of spring

THE DISBROWS 151

in the air, and she had gone along one of the little
winding paths through the pine wood, she met
him with his gun on his shoulder and his dogs at
his heels.

"Why, Annie Laurie," he cried, "are you out
hunting too?"

The deep suspicion and anger she felt toward
his father put some irritation into her tone as
she said:

"And why are you hunting, Sam? I thought
you were w^orking in the box factory office."

"Well, so I was. You see, I had finished
school here and dad couldn't afford to send me
away. I might have gone anyway, and somehow
worked my way through Rutherford Academy,
but Hannah said I oughtn't to leave mother. So
I stayed — though it didn't seem to me quite the
best thing to do. But now, suddenly, dad says
I'm to go away to school. At first I refused. I
was afraid it would mean pinching and scrimp-
ing for all the rest of them at home. But dad
said, no, things were a little easier with him now,
and I'd better take the chance while I had it."

Annie Laurie stood before him in the path
staring, while Sam waited in vain for her con-
gratulations.

1^2 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"So, yesterday," he went on in a somewhat
dashed tone, "a fellow came to the factory look-
ing for work. He said he needed it very badly
— had his mother to look after. So I spoke up
and said I was leaving to go into the Rutherford
Academy at the spring term, and that I'd get
out and let him have my place. You see, there
were a number of things I wanted to do around
home before I went away. And I was just crazy
to get off in the hills for a day or two. That's
the way with us down here, isn't it, Annie
Laurie? We can keep under roof only about so
long. Then we have to go roving for a spell."

Annie Laurie hardly heard what he said. She
could with difficulty keep from breaking out
with:

"But where is the money coming from that is
to send you away to the academy? Didn't you
ask your father how he came by this money so
suddenly? Have 5^ou no notion of what he has
done to earn this money? Can you be living
a lie — just as he is?"

There swept back to her memory the words
the minister had said that day in church when
she had caught Sam's eye, and had known what
he was thinking.

THE DISBROWS 153

"Plant a lie in the garden of your soul," he
had said, "and it will flourish worse than any-
poisonous weed. Do not think you can uproot
it when you will, for it will grow and grow till
it is stronger than you, and not all your prayers
and tears can rend its terrible roots out of your
life."

Sam had wondered, as she had, why the
preacher should have talked like that to a con-
gregation of good people. For they had all
seemed good to her; but now she realized that
if the Disbrows were living a lie perhaps other
persons whom she knew and liked were doing
so, too. For the first time in Annie Laurie's
life a tidal wave of suspicion, distrust and hatred
of the world swept over her, and it seemed like
a wicked place — a place made up of beings who
tried to injure each other.

She felt so ill that she leaned against a tree.

Sam seemed to take no notice, however. He
was watching his dogs, and talking on and on
in his cheerful way.

"And another fine thing is going to happen,"
he said. "Dad has got up spunk enough at last
to send Hannah up to Williamsburg to have her
eyes operated upon, and sis has found the courage

1^4 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

to go. Do you know, I believe that after she
gets those poor eyes of hers straightened she
won't be so shy and queer as she is now. I sup-
pose she loathes going out where she'll meet
people, when she has to look all over the premises
whenever she tries to fix her eyes on the person
she's talking to. Then, if dad could only get
some one in to take care of poor mother, Hannah
could go away to school too, perhaps, and grow
to be a little more like other folks."

Annie Laurie knew that Sam would not have
talked about his own people in this free way to
anyone but her. The two had spoken out their
minds to each other for years, and it had come
to be second nature for them to do it.

And now here they were with a black secret
between them. She, Annie Laurie, who had
meant always to be Sam's true friend, was sus-
picious of him! Yet she could not look at him,
standing there smiling in the spring sunlight,
his eyes full of enthusiasm, and think him guilty
of any knowledge of wrong-doing on the part of
his father.

How very, very strange life seemed 1 Once
she had thought it like a road. One had only
to walk ahead, doing right and nodding to the

THE DISBROWS 155

passers-by, and all would be well. Now she saw
how it twisted, turned, and split — this road —
and how difficult it was to tell which turning to
take, or which by-path to seek.

Then an impulse came over her almost as
strong and swift as one of those which were for-
ever besetting Azalea.

"Sam," she said, "I haven't been in your house
for years. Do you know, I would like to go.
I'd like to go now. Do you think I might?"

Sam flushed a little and hesitated a moment.

"Why, yes, Annie, I don't know why you
shouldn't. Mother doesn't see many people, as
you know; and they won't be expecting you, but
if you'll take things as you find them — "

"Oh, yes, Sam," she aid dryly. "That's just
what I mean. I want to take them as they are.
I want to get acquainted with your family."

He looked pleased and softened at that.

"Do you, Annie Laurie?" he said with a little
thrill in his voice. "Well, that sure is nice of
you. Not very many of the neighbors seem to
care whether they live or die. Come along,
then. Let's go now."

So they turned in the direction of the Disbrow
house, Annie Laurie leading and Sam walking

156 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

behind, nervously smiling, the dogs at his heels.

They turned in at the Disbrow place, pass-
ing through the sagging gate, and Sam uttered
his first apology.

"I've tried and tried to get that old gate to
Stay up on the level," he said. "But seems like
we never have the proper tools to do anything
w^ith ; and anyhow, the w^ood's so rotten it won't
hold a nail, hardly."

"Oh, a sagging gate is nothing," answered
Annie Laurie dully.

The little garden had not yet felt the influence
of spring, and it looked dejected enough. Frag-
ments of last year's mosquito netting dangled at
the windows; the paint of the little house was
weather-worn; the arms were off the bench on
the porch. Green shades kept the light from
making its way into the low rooms. Indeed, so
dim was the room into which Annie Laurie
stepped that at first she could see nothing. The
heat was fairly sweltering, and the atmosphere
was lifeless and stale-smelling.

"Mother," said Sam gently, "IVe brought a
friend to see you — Annie Laurie Pace."

"Oh," sighed a voice from the gloom, strug-
gling between reproachfulness and natural

THE DISBROWS 157

politeness, "have you? How do you do, Annie
Laurie?"

"I'm very well, thank, you ma'am. Are you
feeling any better?"

"No — no, I don't seem to get any better. Sam,
you'll have to pull up a shade. Annie Laurie
won't be able to see a thing."

Annie Laurie closed her eyes for an instant.
She dreaded what she would see, and yet she
had long wished to know the truth — to know
what Sam's strange home was like. She heard
the shade being raised, and with something of
an effort she opened her eyes and looked about.
What she saw gave her a shock. Her own home
was ugly enough, as she knew well ; but poverty
was here, and worse than poverty — indifference
to appearances. The almost bare apartment
wore that dejected and unhappy aspect of a room
for which no one cares and in which no one
hopes. It was a sad room — a sick room — with a
long couch and its occupant for the chief ob-
jects.

Yes, the couch was long and wide, though the
woman who lay on it was so small. Figured
brown calico covered the bed, and the woman
was dressed in a wrapper of faded blue. There

158 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

was no collar about her throat — only the coarse
open neck-band, showing a shriveled neck.
Her face was bloodless and bleached like
a vegetable that has grown in the dark, and out
of it looked a pair of weary eyes, beneath which
were deep, dark circles. Her hair — brown,
touched with gray — was brushed back straight
and flat from her bulging brow, and this, with
her high-arched eyebrows, gave her an almost
Chinese look. Her hands, thinner and more
apathetic than any hands Annie Laurie ever had
seen, lay on the calico cover.

"It's not very often I have light let in here,"
she said. "It makes my head ache so."

Annie Laurie did not say that she ought not to
have let it in for her, if that was the case. She
couldn't really feel that this w^as the case. She
was glad the light was in the room for once, and
by it, she moved toward Mrs. Disbrow's bed,
her hand outstretched with something almost
like satisfaction, for she knew as she looked in
that woman's face, that if her fortune had been
stolen from her by the undertaker, his wife did
not know it. She was as convinced of this woman's
innocence when she looked at her, as she was of
her pitiful condition. So she took one of the

THE DISBROWS 159

claw-like hands in her own strong grasp and sat
down beside her. Mrs. Disbrow's face was
quivering with the excitement of meeting a
stranger.

"Sam often talks of you," said his mother in
her fluttering voice. "I've been wanting to see
you. You're a strong, fine girl, Annie."

"Yes, I'm strong and well," the girl answered.
"I'm very thankful."

"Well, I haven't known a well day for years,"
said the invalid. "Here I lie, racked with pain,
and I declare I don't know whether it's one day
or another."

Annie Laurie felt herself bracing against this
discouraged tone.

"Well," she said, "I don't suppose you really
have to worry about what day it is. You have
nothing to do — no Monday washing to think of,
or Saturday baking. Some one else does all that
for you."

She spoke merely to present a cheerful side,
but Mrs. Disbrow flushed a trifle. Annie Laurie
saw that she had said something that annoyed
her.

"Yes," the sick woman replied still more de-
jectedly, "I'm nothing but a drag on my family.

i6o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

I often say to them that it would be better if I
was out of their way."

"I don't suppose that makes them very happy
— hearing you say that." Annie Laurie replied
in her hearty way. It really seemed to her as
if that was the unkindest thing a mother could
say to her children. "If only I could have my
mother, sick or well, or any way at all, I'd be the
happiest girl in the world. It's terribly lonely
being without a mother — or a father," she added
almost in a whisper.

Mrs. Disbrow reached out her hand and laid
it on Annie Laurie's.

"Poor girl," she murmured with what was al-
most her first thought of anyone save herself,
that winter.

"And — Oh, I feel so sorry for Sam and Han-
nah, with you ill always," went on Annie Laurie.
"Of course it spoils their happiness. It seems
such a pity! Isn't there anything that can be
done, Mrs. Disbrow? Doesn't any doctor know
how to cure you? Haven't you any idea your-
self of what ought to be done?"

"Well, my husband talks of going West soon,**
answered Mrs. Disbrow with something like
vivacity — or rather, like a shadow of it. "I'm

THE DISBROWS i6i

looking forward to that. If we could get to a
new place and to a new house, and if there was
something to look forward to, and hope for the
children to make something of themselves, I
don't know — maybe — " her voice trailed off and
her eyes fixed themselves in an aimless reverie on
the opposite wall.

So they were going West! That was the plan.
The man who had been unable to give his family
a chance, who had been broken by this long ill-
ness of his wife's, who had failed to make his
place among men, was going West. His chance
had come to him at last. Had it come through
theft? Annie Laurie found herself wishing that
they might indeed have the chance, these poor
people who seemed never to have been able to
step out into the sunshine. Yet had they a right
to this chance — if it meant her defeat? Could
she let them go this way, while she was left to
struggle with poverty?

The door opened and a girl entered. Han-
nah! She was so slender that Annie Laurie,
who was broad of shoulder, with a backbone that
might have been made of steel, wondered how
the poor thing managed to keep upright. Her
face was ivory-colored, her frock an ill-fitting

i62 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

gingham of a hideous "watermelon" pink. She
turned her dreadfully crossed eyes on Annie
Laurie — or to be correct, turned one of them on
her — and looked at her resentfully.

"This is sister Hannah, Annie Laurie," said
Sam in rather a stifled voice. "You two girls
ought to know each other, you know."

"How do you do?" said Hannah, miserable
with shyness.

"Oh, I'm pretty well, thank you, Hannah,"
Annie Laurie answered, and then she added:
"But I can't say I'm very happy. You wouldn't
expect that. I'm very, very lonely without my
father."

She had risen and stood before the girl, with
her bald little statement of sorrow, and Hannah,
forgetting herself and her fears for a moment,
looked up at Annie Laurie with sympathy in
her face.

"Oh," she said, "it's too bad. I — I cried after
I heard of it."

She seemed astonished at herself for saying
so much, and Sam looked at her with amaze-
ment. Had Hannah actually cried over some
one else's troubles?

THE DISBROWS 163

"Did you?" exclaimed Annie Laurie. "Oh,
that was sweet of you, Hannah."

She forgot her Aunt Adnah's axiom that the
Paces seldom kissed, and leaned forward and
planted a warm kiss on Hannah's cheek.

"I like to know that," she went on. "You sec
I feel so — so friendless."

"Why, with your aunts and all?" inquired
Mrs. Dish row.

"I feel as if I ought to be protecting my aunts,
you see," explained Annie. "They are old and
terribly broken by father's death. And then,
everything has gone so wrong with us. We
haven't been able to find father's money any-
where, you know, and we're really poor. We've
no money to run the dairy on, and the men need
overseeing, and I've blundered along with my
bad bookkeeping. Altogether, it looks as if
things were going to ruin, and I just can't bear
that, Mrs. Disbrow."

"Why, you've always been so prosperous!"
exclaimed Mrs. Disbrow. "My husband often
has spoken of how prosperous your father
was, and has contrasted him with himself.
You see, Mr. Disbrow never has got on well
here. His farm has paid poorly, and of course

i64 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

the undertaking business is of very little conse-
quence in a community like this. I declare I
can't blame him for being discouraged and bit-
ter and sort of half-hating the men who are suc-
cessful. It's hard to like people when every-
thing is going against you."

Annie Laurie swept her glance around the
room again, taking in the brother and sister, and
resting it at last on the sick woman.

"I suppose it is," she said slowly. "I suppose
it is. But Mrs. McBirney says you have to give
out liking to have people like you, and that you
have to think you are going to succeed in order
to do it."

"And you have to think well in order to be
well, I suppose," said the invalid angrily. "I
suppose that's her idea. Well, you can tell her
for me that she's mistaken."

Annie Laurie did not look rebuked. She sat
still, thinking.

"I know so little about sickness," she said
slowly, "that I can't even sympathize the way
I ought to, I suppose. Oh, Mrs. Disbrow, don't
you suppose you could go riding with me? I'm
such a good driver, I wouldn't let you be shaken

THE DISBROWS 165

up at all. Sam and Hannah could sit beside
you to keep you from being joggled."

"A pretty sight I'd makel" cried Mrs. Dis-
brow. "There's too many of the neighbors
would be peeking out to see what I looked like,
after all these years of being shut away. No,
thank you, child, I don't believe I want to try."

"But you could go at twilight. We could go
when the neighbors are at supper. Wouldn't
it be fun, Sam? Could you sit up, ma'am?"

"No, I don't believe I could. And even if I
did, like as not I'd pay for it the next day."

"But why not try? Maybe you wouldn't have
to pay for it. Oh, ma'am, it's so wonderful to
be out of doors. You can't think what you miss
staying in here — can she, Sam?"

"No," said Sam, "she can't have an idea. Oh,
mother, you never would listen to me, though
truly I believe you'd be ever so much better if
you would get out. Please try. The three of us
will be able to take good care of you."

There was a moment's silence, and then the
boy flung out his arms with sudden passion.

"Oh, mother, mother, please try! Why need
we all be so unhappy? Why can't we have a lit-
tle joy like other people?"

i66 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Annie Laurie felt the tears leap into her eyes.
She had never before seen Sam as other than
the cheerful, hearty boy, but now she knew that
the cheerfulness and heartiness had been an imi-
tation of the real thing. They had been but his
courage masquerading as something else.

Mrs. Disbrow raised herself on her elbow and
looked at her son. Suddenly a great light broke
over her. She had not been the only sufferer
in that house. Before her were the two whose
youth she had shadowed with her pain.

"I'll go," she said in a strange voice. *'When
shall it be?"

"Now," cried Annie Laurie. "I'll run right
home and have the men hitch up. Oh, Hannah,
be sure she's dressed warm enough. I'll have
something warm put in for her feet. Oh, Sam,
maybe she'll like it!"

She turned toward the boy with outstretched
hands and he caught and held them for a mo-
ment. Then she was off, running as fast as she
could to serve the people into whose house she
had gone with the motives of a spy.

CHAPTER X

SAM

Of course Annie Laurie told Azalea and
Carin all about it as the three sat together the
next day after luncheon, in the schoolroom.

"Papa said he'd seen you," Carin answered.
"He was horseback riding and late getting
home, and he said he saw you out with the Dis-
brows, and that Mrs. Disbrow looked like a
ghost that had got back to earth and didn't like
it very well. But he thought you were wonder-
ful to do that. He didn't quite see how you could,
feeling as you do, but he thought it lovely of
you just the same."

"Well," said Annie Laurie. "You see I didn't
feel quite the way I thought I did when I saw
that poor woman and Hannah; and then poor
Sam looked at me as if he thought I could set
his world right if I only would."

"It's a terribly twisted world," mused Azalea.
"Now, what if poor little Hannah has her eyes
straightened, and Sam goes to college, and Mrs.

167

i68 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Disbrow gets her health out West all out of the
money that was stolen from you, Annie Laurie?
Those are all good things to have happen."

"Yes, they are," answered Annie Laurie with-
out anger. "They are good things. But you
remember what Elder Mills said that last night
about avoiding lies in word and act. I remem-
ber particularly because it was something like
what the preacher had been saying over to the
Baptist church only a few Sundays before. It
seemed to me they were all harping on that sub-
ject, but I begin to see why, now. I can see that
all false things are lies — that stealing is a sort
of lie — a saying that something is yours which
isn't. It will be like that with the Disbrows,
I suppose; no matter what good comes to them,
it won't seem good — at least not to Mr. Disbrow,
who knows the truth about how he came by the
money. It's dreadful, when you come to think
of it, that a nice boy like Sam should be having
things out of that money he's no right to."

"You oughtn't to speak as if it was an abso-
lutely sure thing that he took the money, Annie
Laurie," warned Carin. "Papa says we mustn't
do that. He says it's a kind of crime in itself

SAM 169

to accuse people of sins when you're not sure
they're guilty."

"I'll try not to," sighed Annie Laurie peni-
tently, "but it's very hard. And, oh, Carin,
it's getting to be so sad at the house with the
old aunts always talking about the lost money
and hunting and hunting for it, and the business
going to pieces and I not able to prevent it."

That night when the Carsons sat at dinner,
Carin told her father that Annie Laurie had
said Mrs. Disbrow was expecting her husband
to take the family West.

Mr. Carson brought his fist down on the table.

"Now, that can't be," he cried. "I won't have
that! I simply won't. No matter what risk I
run of doing the man an injustice, I won't have
him leave this community. He's under suspi-
cion and he's got to stay here. I'm sorry for
him, sometimes, when I see him walk into town
and all the men turn their backs on him and
walk away. Of course, it isn't really fair — or
at least, it may not be fair, for it is possible that
he is as innocent as you or I. But if he is guilty,
he's getting only a small part of what he de-
serves. At any rate, I can understand that he's
very uncomfortable in this town nowadays, and

170 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

that he'd like mighty well to get out of it. But
he shan't, if I have anything to say about it."

The next morning, however, Annie Laurie
came with startling news.

"They're gonel" she cried as she dashed into
the schoolroom.

"Who?" the girls asked in unison.

"The Disbrows."

"No I"

"Yes, they have. I was walking along the road
and I happened to look over toward their house,
and there wasn't any smoke coming from the
chimney. And there was something about the
place — I can't describe it, because the curtains
are forever down anyway — but something that
looked deserted. So I pelted across the field and
knocked at the door and no one answered. And
then I tried the door and it was locked. I saw
the chickens were gone, too, and the cow and
the horses. They all went in the night."

"But do you think Sam would let his family
act like that?"

"Sam went to Rutherford yesterday to the
academy. No, I don't think he knew a thing
about it. He came over after I got home from
school to say good-bye, and he was very happy

SAM 171

and — oh, well — good, you know. No one could
have looked as he did if he had thought his
father was a thief and his family sneaks."

"But my goodness," exclaimed Azalea, "don't
you suppose he's noticed how the men were
treating his father — turning their backs on him
and all that? Pa McBirney said he just couldn't
bring himself to shake hands with him any
more. Don't you suppose Mr. Disbrow ever
had spoken of that at home?"

"He always was bitter and fault-finding any-
way," said Annie Laurie. "Mrs. Disbrow told
me that. I suppose a little more or less com-
plaining wouldn't mean anything to her."

"But she certainly must have wondered at
having the house torn up in an hour or two, and
at setting out in the night that way like fugi-
tives," said Carin.

"Oh, well, you know she hated to go out driv-
ing with me for fear the neighbors would be
peeping at her, so I suppose she was well pleased
to go in the night. She'd hate to have folks find
out what a poor little handful of things they had,
and all that."

"Of course," said Azalea, "it would be easy
enough to find which way they went, by the

172 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

wagon marks. They must have had the cow tied
on behind the wagon, and so they could be fol-
lowed easily and overtaken if — if you wanted
them to be, Annie Laurie."

"Yes, — I know. If— I wanted them to be."

The girl sank into a chair and rested her face
in her hand, staring straight before her. Azalea
and Carin said nothing. They were thinking
very, very hard, too. The silence was long and
intense. Then they heard Miss Parkhurst's
steps approaching down the hall. Annie Laurie
struck her two hands together sharply.

'T can't do it!" she cried. "I can't let Sam's
people be chased like that and brought back.
I may be wrong, and weak, and not fair to the
poor old aunts, but I just can't do it, that's all
there is to it."

Carin and Azalea looked at her with perfect
understanding.

"No," said Carin softly, "you couldn't do that,
could you? Plenty of people could, and they'd
be just and right — maybe. But you couldn't,
and I like you, Annie Laurie, because you can't."

Azalea clapped her hands.

"So do I !" she agreed. "It will all come right
for you, Annie. That's what dear Ma McBir-

SAM 173

ney would say if she knew. Somehow it will
all come right. But to have that poor, sneaking,
miserable man chased, and that sick woman,
and little Hannah who is half-frightened out of
her life anyway — 00-00-00 1 You couldn't."

Miss Parkhurst opened the door. The three
girls arose respectfully and answered her good
morning.

"Algebra this morning," she said briskly.

Perforce they turned their thoughts to matters
that were anything but exciting.

But if they could have known the experiences
their friend Sam Disbrow was going through,
their lesson would have been even poorer than
it was — and Miss Parkhurst had already been
obliged to tell them that as mathematicians she
did not consider them brilliantly successful.

Sam had set off with a light heart. For the
first time in his life he was going away from
home — that depressing and melancholy home,
against the gloom of which he had set all the
forces of his really happy and brave nature.
But the home had been too much for him. He
could feel it slowly and surely dragging him
down into that pit of gloom and distrust where
the others lived, and to leave it behind, to have

174 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

a chance to go to school and get the education
which he felt he must have if he was to make
anything of himself, filled him not only with
joy but gratitude.

Of course, he still wondered how his father
had been able to manage it. He knew that they
were very poor — that his father had not been
able to make a success at anything. His garden
never flourished like that of his neighbors; his
chickens never laid well; his cow gave only a
fraction of the milk she should; his cotton was
but a scanty crop; and even as an undertaker,
the only one in Lee, he sometimes was passed
over for his remote rival in Rutherford.

Recently things had been going even more
wrong than usual. Sam could not explain it,
but a general dislike of the whole Disbrow fam-
ily seemed to have invaded the town. His father
never had been popular, but lately Sam had
noticed signs of actual aversion. How was it
to be accounted for? If ever the faintest shadow
of an idea as to the real reason for this dislike
entered Sam's mind, he thrust it out, strangled
and unrecognizable, from his consciousness. He
believed in his father because he believed in
himself. He was not a person to whom suspi-

SAM 175

cion came naturally, although he had lived in
the midst of it all his days. There is a thing
called reaction — the sharp turning of the spirit
against a condition or an idea. Sam had reacted
against the gray dispositions in his family. He
was ready to blossom into the scarlet of courage
and good will, of power and joy, if only a little
sun could shine on him.

And now it seemed to be shining. He was
going away to school as other boys did. There
would be a number of fellows he knew, and chief
among them would be Richard Heller, the
banker's son. He liked Heller. He counted on
him to "show him the ropes" at the academy.

It was a long time since he had been in the
smart town of Rutherford. His heart leaped in
him as he stepped out from the station, his bag
in his hand, and felt the throb of the busy town
about him. Automobiles were ranged in line
about the station, carriages with well-kept horses
stood in the shade beneath the fine elms, the
paved streets were clean, the street cars new and
fresh looking, and everywhere were busy, active
people, moving along with that air of confidence
and efficiency which too often was lacking at
Lee. And it exhilarated Sam. All that was

176 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

strong and eager in him liked it. He wanted to
be a part of a community like that.

He took the street car that ran to the academy,
and sat wrapt in interest at noting the fine homes,
the well-kept lawns, the excellent public build-
ings. People were doing things here that were
worth while, said Sam to himself. And he, in
his way, was going to be a part of it. Perhaps
he could stay in the Academy till he was gradu-
ated— with honors, maybe — and then he would
stay on at Rutherford, and become a part of its
busy, stirring life. He would have a home like
the one he was passing, with tall windows, and
the light streaming in through beautiful trees,
and a porch like that, with his family sitting
out on it in the open, and not hiding away in
the shadow. Then there would be bright flowers,
like those in that yard, and friends coming and
going the way they were from that house. And
they would be laughing — Annie Laurie loved to
laugh — and sometimes they would eat on the
lawn. But he drew himself up with a flush.
What had Annie Laurie to do with it all? A
girl like that — would she care seriously for one
of the queer, shiftless tribe of Disbrow? Sam

SAM 177

hit his knee angrily. Let him attend to what
was before him and stop thinking nonsense.

He reached the Academy, and walked along
under its wonderful white oaks to the Ballenger
dormitories, where he knew Heller stayed. Per-
haps Heller could get him a room near his own.
It was rather a trick to get in the Ballenger dor-
mitories and the fellows who succeeded were
considered lucky. But perhaps Heller could
manage it for him somehow — they always had
been good friends.

He was directed along the corridors, hung
with their many pictures, and decorated with
plaster casts, to a corner room on the third story.

He knocked expectantly.

"Come!" commanded Heller's voice.

Sam threw open the door.

"Dick!" he cried, "I've come on to school.
What do you think of that?"

He dropped his suit case and hastened toward
Richard with outstretched hand.

Dick took it silently. His eyes, that used to
be so cordial in their glances, turned upon Sam
with a scrutinizing look. They searched his
drooping face sharply. Then something like
the old expression returned. Sam was not slow.

178 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

He saw that something was quite wrong — that
Dick had been thinking evil of him in some way,
and that now that he had met him face to face,
he was finding it difficult to sustain the suspicion.

"What's the matter, man?" Sam cried. "What
are you looking at me like that for? Why don't
you speak?"

"Sit down," answered Dick brusquely.
"Something is the matter, Sam, but I'd rather
be skinned than tell you what it is. All the same
I'm not going to go around snubbing you and
leaving you in the dark after all the good times
we've had together."

"I should think not, indeed," cried Sam.
"Skin away, old man. Let's have the operation
over with."

Dick, it was evident, dared not give himself
time to think. He blurted out what he had to
say.

"My dad wrote me that you were thinking of
coming down here to school."

"Well?"

"Well, and he said the neighbors all were
wondering where in the dickens your father got
the money to send you."

SAM 179

**I don't know," answered Sam angrily, "that
it is any of their blamed business."

"It mightn't be under some circumstances,"
Dick went on. "But—"

"Yes?"

"This is where the skinning process comes in."

"Rip ahead."

"But they think it mighty queer, you know,
that your dad should come into money just at
the time that Simeon Pace's money disap-
peared."

Sam was on his feet.

"Say!" he gasped, "I don't understand."

"They say," went on Dick, gulping with dis-
tress, yet determined to finish the whole story
then and there, "that Simeon Pace carried his
money in his hollow tin arm, and that your
father took that arm from Simeon Pace's body,
and helped himself to the money. Now, there
you are, and — dang it, Sam, — you'll have to try
to forgive me for telling you."

Sam sank into his seat again and sat star-
ing. The little clock on the mantel shelf ticked
off the seconds briskly — ticked on and on, and
still Sam sat and stared, and Dick waited, hardly
daring to breathe. He could see that Sam was

i8o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

going over the whole situation — was balancing
this against that, thinking over the things he had
noticed, "sizing up" the situation with his good
clear brain.

Suddenly he got up and seized his suit case.

"Where you going?" shouted Dick.

"Home," said Sam quietly. "I'm going
home."

Dick ran forward and, grasping Sam's hand,
wrung it with all his strength.

"Oh, Sam," he cried. "How I wish it could
have been otherwise! But I had to tell you. I
couldn't let a thing like that lie between us."

"No," said Sam wearily. "It's got to be
cleared up. Living a lie! I remember a sermon
— Annie Laurie and I heard it — living a lie!
No, I couldn't. Good-bye, Dick. It — it wasn't
for me, was it?" He looked about the charming
room, and through the window at the great cam-
pus. "Good-bye. And — thank you. You did
right. It was the only thing to do, since we were
such old — "

"Friends!" cried Dick with a half-sob. "Such
old friends, Sam. Yes, go home and clear it
up. And come back, old man — whatever you
do, come back!"

CHAPTER XI

MARCHING ORDERS

Sam saw nothing now of the inviting homeS'
and their lovely gardens as he rode back to the
station. The world seemed black shot through
with little darts of scarlet They kept teasing
him — these darting flecks of red, sharp-pointed
and angry. At the station he found that it was
an hour and a half before train time, so he sat
down stolidly to wait. He had missed his lunch-
eon, and it was now near dinner time, but it did
not occur to him to get anything to eat.

The time, too, raced by, keeping pace with
those swift-speeding thoughts of his, on which
he could not have drawn the reins had he tried.
And presently he was on the train again, going
homeward. He soon would see his father, who
would not, Sam had to confess with biting
shame, look him in the eye nor answer any ques-
tion frankly. Moreover, it would be his fate
to add to his mother's misery; he would see
Hannah turning away from him even more than

i8i

1 82 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

she had. And all the town would be looking
at him with the eyes of suspicion. He woujd
read: "Son of a thief! Son of a thief!" in their
averted glances.

Of course his father might not be guilty. And
yet, somehow, shamefully, heart-breakingly, it
was borne in upon him that he was. And why
should he, Sam, who had done no harm to any-
one, go back to face it? Why should Annie
Laurie and her friends see his shame? He could
disappear now — slip off the train at the next
station — and walk and walk till he reached
some place where nobody knew him, and then
he could go to work and care for himself, and
win an honorable name. That was what Amer-
ica was for, he had heard Mr. Carson say, to
give a chance to the individual. A man had a
right to prove himself, and to be judged by him-
self, apart from and regardless of his family.

Yet, to run away from a thing like that, to
let the old neighbors think him a poor wretch,
to lose the regard of — of all those he cared about,
was out of the question. And moreover, he
couldn't let his father go on keeping back the
fortune that belonged to others. He'd have to
go back and make him right himself.

MARCHING ORDERS 183

His thoughts came clashing together as a re-
turning wave meets and breaks against an ad-
vancing one upon the seashore. And the tumult
and raging was too much for him. He found
himself incapable of going on just then. The
train stopped for a moment at some woodland
siding — the track was but a single one and such
stops were occasionally necessary — and almost
without thinking, Sam leaped from the platform
and slipped away into the twilight.

He walked along, hardly knowing where he
was going. His suit case was not much of a
handicap, for there was little enough in it. He
could not have told, if any one had asked him,
why he kept on pounding along the road, nor
why, when he came to a heavily wooded hill, he
should have gone in through an opening in the
trees and begun to climb its gentle slope. He
only knew that he was grateful to have the trees
closing around him like that, hiding him from
the sight of men.

He went on, stumbling over roots, half-start-
ing at deep shadows, and reached the summit.
Here the trees had been cut away, and though
the songs of those beneath him surged up to his
ears, he presently found himself standing be-

184 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

neath the clear sky, perfectly sheltered from
view. There was a scythe-like young moon,
well toward the zenith, and a few pale stars.
The weather had softened and warmed and
spring was sending her sweet messages abroad.
He stood for a moment looking upward; then
he cast himself on the ground, with his face to
the earth, and in the solitude his sharp suffering
gave vent to itself in sobs.

Nor was it alone for the shame and sorrow
of the present that he wept. It seemed as if all
the tears he had held back during his lonely and
baffled boyhood had their way now and streamed
from his eyes. He cried blindly, passionately.
He emptied his soul of grief. And then he sat
up weakly and looked around him. The whip-
poorwills were calling to each other. Distant
hounds were barking. The delicate little moon
was running her fragile skiff over the sky-sea
toward its western port. It was night, and the
world was asleep. What was it Annie Laurie
sang?

'All are sleeping, weary heart.
Thou, thou only sleepless art."

He hoped she was sleeping — that poor Annie
Laurie, who was having so much trouble, and

MARCHING ORDERS 185

none of it in any way her fault. And had she,
too, been suspecting him? Had she held this ter-
rible idea of his father and kept it to herself?
Had she come to his house that day she had been
so kind and good, to see what they were like —
the Disbrows? He seemed to be on fire from
head to foot with shame. Back and forth, like
wild beasts pacing, raged his thoughts. He had
no idea of the passage of time. Only the stars
kept moving on, beautifully, in their wonderful
order, and the wind, growing chillier now, blew
upon him, and still the whippoorwills called.
By and by the color of the world began to
change. Something strange happened to the
night — it grew pale, thin, transparent. The
birds began stirring about, making soft noises.
The cattle lowed in the near-by fields. Then a
kind of milky lightness, delicate as one of Carin's
scarfs, drifted up into the sky. Presently it
turned a soft pink; then rosy red; then it was
edged with orange and embroidered with saf-
fron. It was sunup, and Sam Disbrow faced
the most important day of his life.

He had to make up his mind whether he was
a coward or a brave man — whether he was going
to run away or stay and fight. And he didn't

i86 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

know. As he got dizzily to his feet, he hadn't
an idea which he was. But the colors in the
sky seemed to be cheering him on like trumpets.
Something wild, strange and splendid swept into
his spirit — something that made him feel as if
he were about to set out on a march with brave
men — men who could die for an idea. It was
as if he had swung into the ranks, and his leader
had shouted ^'Forward, march!"

Sam went down the hill, and struck a road on
the far side of it. He followed it to a farmhouse
and asked if he might have some breakfast.
They gave him good bacon and corn bread,
butter and milk. He ate like one famished, and
then, having learned the schedule of the trains,
and that he had barely time to catch the next
one bound toward Lee, he ran as hard as he
could to the distant station. The train drew in
while he was yet a block away, but he sent out
a shout that startled the engineer in his cab.
Good-naturedly, they held the train for him.
He swung on the rear platform. And, though
he could not forget for a moment all that he was
going back to, still he was indefinably happy.

"Forward, march," his invisible leader had
commanded. Sam did not stop to find a name

MARCHING ORDERS 187

for this leader — to call him God. He obeyed,
and having placed himself under marching
orders, he fell asleep, and when the conductor
called him at Lee, arose refreshed, and went out
to fight his battle.

There were not many persons on the street.
A mid-forenoon quietude rested over the little
town. A few neighbors Sam did meet, but they
had no chance to turn the cold shoulder to him
this morning for he hardly saw them. He was
bent for home, and he strode forward with no
thought of anything but meeting his father face
to face and hurling at him the question :

"Did you take Simeon Pace's money?"

He forgot that he was a son, and must pay a
son's deference, or that Hector Disbrow, sus-
pected of being a thief, was his father. He felt
as if his soul must put that inquiry to the soul
of the man. And on his answer depended honor,
happiness, everything.

As he drew near the house, he saw that there
was something unusual about it. With a sick
feeling, he realized that it looked even more
vacant and dejected than ordinarily. He tried
the front door ; found it locked ; sped to the rear ;
was unable to enter; and then, rushing to the

i88 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

stable, realized the whole truth. His family
had gone. They had run away in the night.
The whole thing was true. His father was a
thief — and now he was making of himself a
fugitive.

But the feeling of having come back to fight
a battle as a brave man would fight it, did not
desert him. The black despair of the night
before had been routed by all the better angels
of his nature. He was in the thick of the battle
now, beyond question. He turned his back on
the house and went toward the town.

On his way, he met Hi Kitchell, who had been
excused from school because of a toothache, and
who was running along, his hand to his face,
quite willing to talk about his misery to anyone.
Sam called him.

"Hello, Hi. Toothache?"

"You bet!"

"What you going home for? Why don't you
go to a dentist?"

"Naw. I'm going home."

"No use in that. Turn around the other way.
Come on down to the dentist's."

Hi wriggled. "I'm afraid."

"I'll go with you."

MARCHING ORDERS 189

"Will yeh?"

"You bet I will. And Hi, I've got a trouble
that's much worse than toothache."

"Have you, Sam — for sure?"

"For sure I have. Hi. Now if you had a
terrible trouble what would you do? I've told
you where to go to get a toothache cured, but
where would you go if — if everything you cared
for seemed tumbling to pieces?"

Hi came up close to Sam. He had forgotten
about his toothache, and he looked at Sam with
his ferret eyes, in which the tears had now gath-
ered.

"Sam," he said under his breath, "I know
about your trouble. I've heard of it. And —
and you know your people have gone away.
They've gone over the mountain, I reckon.
Why, Sam, if I was in trouble like that I'd go
straight to Mr. Summers."

"But he's the Methodist preacher, you know,
and my folks are Baptists."

"What's the difference?" cried Hi defiantly.
"I don't see no difference. Anyway, if Mr.
Summers was a Populist I'd go to him just the
same."

Sam was surprised to hear himself laughing.

190 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"I will," he declared, and he and Hi tramped
on toward town. At the dentist's office Sam
started to turn in with Hi, but Hi stopped him.

"You don't need to come," he said. "I reckon
I can stand a little tooth-tinkering. You get on
to Mr. Summers. And — and. Sam — "

"Yes?"

"If you don't want to stay up there to the
house alone, you come down to our place. My
ma, she'd love to have you. Sam — "

"Yes."

"We know what trouble is, ma and me, see?
Don't nobody around these parts know better
than we do. Mr. Carson, he set us on our feet,
and now we can hold up our heads and look
people in the face. My, but it feels good! But
we know what trouble is — all kinds, pretty near.
You come to us."

Sam held out a tense hand.

"Put it there, Hi."

Hi "put it there" and turned valorously up
the dentist's terrible stairs.

As for Sam, he kept vigorously on his way.
He thought of those automobiles he had seen the
day before, and he felt as if he were all cranked
up, with a good spark on, and was ready for a

MARCHING ORDERS 1911

long hard run. So he turned up Burchard Ave-
nue, and in at the gate of the little Methodist
parsonage.

The first person he saw was Mrs. Summers,
who had just got baby Jonathan asleep and was
setting him out of doors in his carriarge, to grow.
She held up a small brown finger to warn Sam
that conversation was not to be permitted in the
vicinity of the sleeping prince, and led the way
into the living room. Then she went in search
of her husband, who, it appeared, was shut up
in the cell-like room he called his study. He
came striding out of his retreat and grasped Sam
by the hand.

"Thought you were off to Rutherford, son."

"So I was, sir, but — I came back."

"So I see. Why?"

"I — I heard what they were saying about my
father, sir. Dick Heller told me."

"Well, well, he did, eh? It was better on the
whole, I reckon. I had two minds to tell you
myself, and then I just lacked the ginger. But
now you know what you're up against, don't
you? And your folks left last night, too. Some
of the neighbors wanted to have a posse set out
after them and bring them back, but Mr. Car-

192 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

son said Annie Laurie Pace was dead set against
it. So he forbade it. You don't mind my speak-
ing right out? It's best that way, isn't it?"

"Best that way," murmured Sam with dry
lips.

"But you've come back, son, to face the music.
Well, what can I do to help you?"

"Mr. Summers, do you think my father
guilty? Do you think he took the money?"

"I've no more information on the subject than
you," said Mr. Summers. "What do you think
— as man to man?"

They faced each other silently. Each knew
that the other gave verdict and that it was
"guilty."

"And yet," said Mr. Summers, "circumstan-
tial evidence is a shaky thing. A very shaky,
tricky thing."

"Yes," said Sam. But there was no hope in
his tone.

"What do you mean to do, Sam?"

"I've come to ask you, sir. I've a hundred
dollars that father gave me. I'd like to give
that to Annie Laurie if- it would help her out
any. But what is a hundred dollars? Why, Mr.

'But you've come back, son, to face the music.

MARCHING ORDERS 193

Pace had thousands and thousands! And I hear
they're having a terrible hard time altogether
— that they can't get fit helpers, and that Miss
Adnah isn't turning out so good a boss after all,
and that the accounts are getting all mixed up.
It looks as if the whole thing was going to
pieces."

"It needn't," said Mr. Summers rather
sharply.

Sam looked up questioningly.

"If they had one good strong, capable helper
on the place, say a man who was willing to work
for nothing for the time being, a man with sense
enough to find out the best ways of feeding cat-
tle and caring for them, and peddling milk, and
who wouldn't mind sitting up after a hard day's
work to straighten out books, and who'd try to
build up instead of putting in his best licks tear-
ing down — the way those fool hands they have
now seem to be doing — why, there'd be some
hope. See?"

Sam got to his feet.

"Do you mean, Mr, Summers, that I — "

Mr. Summers took his pipe from the mantel
shelf, deliberately knocked the tobacco out of

194 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

it, refilled it from a generous tobacco can and
lit a match. While the match burned he turned
toward Sam.

"You can just stake your life I mean it, son,"

said he.

"But will Annie Laurie — will the aunts let

me?"

The reverend Mr. Summers nodded his long,

thin head.

"I'll tell 'em to," he said. "Mr. Carson will
advise 'em too. You'll be making reparation,
Samuel. You'll be squaring yourself and your
family. You'll get back what belongs to you,
the respect of the community, the regard of your
— particular friends. And you'll live here,
in my house, understand?"

"Oh, Mr. Summers, I couldn't do that."

"I say you'll live here," roared the tall
preacher. "Do you think I'd let you go back to
that forsaken house and sit there with all the
sneaking ghosts of memory putting their miser-
able noses in the doors and windows o' nights,
making goblin faces at 3^ou? Not much. Bar-
bara! Barbara, I say!"

Mrs. Barbara came running on her little feet.

"Absalom," she whispered excitedly, "what's

MARCHING ORDERS 195

the use in waking the baby? Don't you know
any better than that?"

The giant collapsed.

*'Willow waly," he gasped. "Can't I ever
remember about that young-un? But, Barbara,
I suppose you have been listening to our con-
versation?"

"I have been sitting in the next room," replied
little Mrs. Summers with dignity. "It would
have been impossible for me to avoid hearing
parts of it."

"Well, then, what do you think? Is this boy
going back to that shut-up house of his, or is
he going to stay here at the parsonage? That's
what I want to know."

Mrs. Barbara smiled her sidelong smile.

"What's the use of asking such a silly question
as that?" she inquired. "Of course he's going
to stay here. I was just thinking I'd run up
that rosebud muslin into curtains for his room."

The Reverend Summers turned a radiant
smile on Sam.

"That's the woman for you!" he cried. "You
think you can get ahead of her, but you can't!
You'd have to be smarter than a possum to get
ahead of her. Rosebud curtains! Now, what

196 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

do you think of that, Sam? Could you have got
as far as rosebud curtains in that length of
time?"

He caught his little wife up in his great
arms and tossed her toward the ceiling as if she
had been a baby. Then he kissed her so loud
that the smack must have been heard in the
street, and dropped her in his sleepy hollow
chair.

"Where's my hat?" he demanded. "My nice,
six-year-old Panama — the Panama of many
journeys, of my courtship, of my marriage, and
probably of my old age? Why, Sam, you ought
to count the rings on that hat. It's more'n a
hundred, I reckon — if you judge it like you do
oaks. Come, sneak out the back way so as not
to shake the royal bed of the slumbering poten-
tate. Where are we going? To talk with Miss
Adnah Pace. Yes, I know she's rather a diffi-
cult one to manage. But I can manage her.
That's my specialty, managing women."

He stopped at the window to throw a kiss to
his smiling wife.

"Come on, son," he commanded; "forward,
march!"

MARCHING ORDERS 197

Had he heard the words ringing in Sam's
brain?

Perhaps so. Anyway he spoke them. "For-
ward, march!" he said. He, too, knew Sam was
going into battle.

CHAPTER XII

"THE DOLL lady"

"My dear Annie Laurie," said Mrs. Carson
one Friday afternoon not long after this, "will
you do Carin and myself the favor of spending
the week end with us? I will send for you to-
morrow morning, if you will do so, and we'll
have a chance to talk. Whenever we try to talk
nowadays, Miss Helena Parkhurst cries out
'Physiography!' or 'Grammar!' or 'American
History!' Anyone would think she didn't want
us to become acquainted."

She shook her finger smilingly at Miss Park-
hurst, who was putting the schoolroom in order
at the close of five hard days of teaching, and
was well pleased at the thought that she could
retire to the peace of her own little sitting room
and follow her own inclination for a day or two.
There were stitches to take and letters to write
and thoughts to think, and the young woman
who gave so unstintingly of her time and knowl-
edge to three restless girls, sighed with relief at

198

*'THE DOLL LADY" 199

the thought of being her own mistress for a
while.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Carson," Annie Laurie
had answered. "I should love to come. You
can't think what a pleasure it would be. But
ought I to leave the aunts? They just sit and
watch for me to come home."

"The aunts shall be bidden to Sunday din-
ner," said Mrs. Carson. "We'll all be gay to-
gether."

She did not say it, but she knew that the flutter
of getting ready for such an event as going out
to The Shoals to dinner would keep Miss Adnah
and Miss Zillah well occupied over Saturday.

"Please come, Annie Laurie," begged Carin.
"I'm getting quite dull, really."

Annie Laurie turned to laugh at her friend.
Quite dull! It seemed impossible that anyone
could be dull in the Carson house. Something
was nearly always going on. Mrs. Carson would
be giving a luncheon to the ladies interested in
the Mountain Industries, or Mr. Carson would
have gentlemen to dinner — gentlemen who came
down from New York or Chicago — or there
would be a moonlight picnic, or a riding party,
or a musicale, or Mr. and Mrs. Carson would
be packing up for one of their sudden journeys.

200 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

It was the first time that Annie Laurie had been
asked to stay overnight at the mansion. She
had been Carin's schoolmate, but hardly more
than that, as she understood very well. She had
a clear mind, capable of seeing things as they
were, and it seemed to her to be a sort of victory
that she should, at last, be asked to join them in
so intimate and social a manner. It showed her
that perhaps she was not so "stifl" after all.

Her thoughts flew to her clothes, as the
thoughts of any girl will when bidden for a visit.
The wardrobe that used to be so well kept up,
in its narrow limits, had grown shabby now.
She had been wearing black for her father, and
her mourning had consisted of frocks which
originally had been colored and which had been
dyed. They had not taken the dye very well,
and they felt either rough or flimsy to the touch.
Annie Laurie would have liked to put charming
clothes on that big strong body of hers. Her
ideal of beautiful dressing was before her daily,
in Mrs. Carson, whose dresses, lovely in color
and texture, never seemed to have too much
trimming on them, or to do anything but drape
and decorate her slender graceful figure. But
Annie Laurie had more sense than vanity, and

'THE DOLL LADY" 201

she said to herself that she would not miss such
a pleasure and privilege as a two-day visit at
The Shoals because of shabby garments.

She sat, however, late that night, pressing her
best black frock, and sewing fresh ruchings into
it, curling her plume with her sharp little pen-
knife, polishing her boots, putting new bows on
her slippers, and running fresh ribbons in her
underclothes. She packed her satchel daintily,
wrapping up her garments in fresh tissue paper
and dropping in a little bag of lavender. Carin
should see that she had the tastes of a lady, at
least.

There was much to do the next morning, too,
for the Pace house was a systematic one, and the
Saturday routine must in no way be neglected.
But by half-after-ten, Annie Laurie, fresh, and
glowing with anticipation, stood with her hat
and jacket on waiting for Carin; and not more
than a minute behind time, Carin drove up to
the door, all in charming spring green, and car-
rying a bunch of pink tulips in her hands for the
aunts.

'We're to take a little drive the first thing,
Annie Laurie," announced Carin. "The valley
is delightful. Everything is bursting into bloom

202 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

at once. Mother said we must go and look and
look and smell and smell till we have soaked in
the spring."

What care-free, happy people the Carsons
were, Annie Laurie thought. One had only to
be with them a very short time to be convinced
that the world was an immensely pleasant place.

So on they went up the sweet valley, over
which the mountains hung with a friendly and
benevolent air. The Judas trees were in bloom
and the orchards budding; on every branch the
fresh leaves were starting out, and the crimson
maple had flung forth its beautiful foliage.
Annie Laurie felt her heart leaping in her, and
the black care that had been hanging over her of
late lifted like mist before the sun. Looking
up, she could see where Azalea's house was
perched fairly upon the edge of the mountain
ledge. There it hung, like an eagle's great nest,
daringly near the long slope of old Mount Ten-
nyson.

"Isn't she a dear — that Azalea girl?" asked
Carin enthusiastically, "Never was there such a
friend! Why, just having her believe in me
the way she does, makes me long to do things.
For example, I had known since I was a very,

"THE DOLL LADY" 203

very small girl that I could draw and paint a
little, and I was forever asking for a studio.
But when mama had given me one, I was so lazy
and dreamy that I hardly did anything in it.
Then Azalea got after me. She said I was going
to be a great painter. She found trees and hills
for me to paint. She sat for me herself, pa-
tiently, hour after hour, while I made horrible
daubs of her. But she kept saying I could do
better if I tried, and do you know, by and by I
actually did do better. Then papa decided I
had a bit of talent, and he arranged with Mr.
Bascomb to come up from Rutherford once a
week to give me instruction. And by and by
when I'm old enough I'm to go back to Chicago
to the Art Institute, maybe; or to New York;
and afterward if I show I'm worth it, to Paris
or Rome."

"Oh, oh!" sighed Annie Laurie in a sort of
rapture. "Paris! Rome! Will you really be
able to go to places like that, Carin? But I for-
get— you already have been to them."

"Yes, I've been," said Carin. "And you'll go
too, sometime, if you want to badly enough. Of
course, it happened to be easy for me. Papa and
mama took me, and I didn't half appreciate it.

204 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

I was so young and the chance came so easily.
But I shall appreciate it next time; and maybe
you'll go with me. Who knows?"

Annie Laurie drew back in her seat with a
sort of shudder.

"Oh, Carin," she said, "I'm afraid things
aren't going to be like that with me. Fine
chances aren't going to come my way. Once
I might have thought they would, but now
everything is changed. There seems to be so
little chance of finding poor dad's money, and
I know so little about earning any. Of course
since Sam came, it's better. The cows are being
properly cared for, the milk gets ofif in time,
and the bills are sent out correctly, and all that."

"Wasn't it fine of him to come back and work
for you like that?"

"Fine? I think it was magnificent. At first,
the aunts couldn't understand it at all. You
know I hadn't told them my suspicions about
Mr. Disbrow, and I had begged the neighbors
not to do so. The idea hadn't occurred to them.
It was better for them to go on hunting and pry-
ing around all their lives than to get to hating
some one and feeling revengeful. So they
couldn't see what Sam meant by saying he would

"THE DOLL LADY" 205

come and work for us for nothing. Aunt Adnah
never had liked him very well. She called him
'that Disbrow boy.' But Mr. Summers and
Mr. Carson persuaded her that Sam was going
into the dairy business sometime and that he
would consider it a privilege to work for us and
learn the business, and that contented her. It
made her think he was practical and she began
to like him better. As for Sam, he works from
early morning till late at night, and the place
begins to look the way it did when dad was man-
aging it."

"And does he seem happy — Sam?" asked
Carin.

"No — o, I can't say he does quite. But he's
something better than happy. He goes around
with a strange look on his face, as if his own
thoughts interested him more than anything else.
He'll hardly talk with me at all. I'd think that
he disliked me, only I know better. He's
ashamed for his family and he won't intrude on
me. That's what he's thinking. At first I tried
to make him feel differently, but then I saw I
was bothering him, and so I made up my mind
to let him alone. I reckon he knows I'll never
go back on him."

2o6 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"And he hasn't an idea where his people are?"

"Not an idea."

"If they were going West why didn't they
take the train here at Lee? What made them go
wandering away in the mountains?"

"Well, I've talked with Mr. McBirney about
that, and he says Mr. Disbrow was a mountain
man born and bred, although he's been living
in town the last few years, and he says no moun-
tain man would go off and leave his chickens and
cow and dogs behind him. It wouldn't so much
as occur to him to do it. Then, too, he thinks
Mr. Disbrow didn't dare try to take the train at
Lee. If the people had seen him going they
would have stopped him. Besides that, I don't
believe Mrs. Disbrow would be willing to go
on the train where everybody could see and stare
at her. You know she can't bear to be looked
at. I suppose it's because she's so like a ghost.
Why, her clothes just hang about her like the
rags on a scarecrow, and her face is the color
of dough and all fallen in. It's a fact; everyone
would turn to look at her. She doesn't look as
if she had lived in the world at all — and she
hasn't for a good many years."

"Well, how do you account for Sam? How

"THE DOLL LADY" 207

could a boy like that come from such a family?"

"Mr. Summers says that there's no inheritance
for souls — that every soul comes fresh from the
hand of God. Sam's soul is too brave to be over-
come by his surroundings. That's all I can
make out of it."

Carin shook her head doubtfully.

"Well, maybe that's so. Yet it seems to me
there's more of a mystery to it than that. Your
Aunt Adnah may think he's a 'Disbrow boy,'
but he certainly doesn't seem like it to me."

They were turning in at the gate of The Shoals
now, and Annie Laurie looked about her with
delight. Gardeners were busy all over the
place; fresh awnings of orange and black had
been hung from the many windows; yellow
tulips appeared in flaming companies along the
walks and about the house. Chairs and tables
of brown rattan were on the porches; swinging
couches heaped with pillows invited one to take
one's ease; books and magazines were placed
temptingly at hand. Annie Laurie thought
what a contrast all this was to her own meager
home, and gave a sharp little sigh. But she was
determined to enjoy herself without stint for
these two bright days.

2o8 AJNNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

And this, indeed, was easy to do. Luncheon
was served to the girls in Carin's studio, and
there for the greater part of the afternoon the
two read, sang and laughed together. Carin
had at least three books which Annie Laurie
"simply must read"; and Annie Laurie was in-
sistent that Carin should do some painting, "be-
ginning at the very beginning," and show her
how it was done.

"Then I'll paint you," declared Carin, and
made her friend stand, straight and tall before
a draping of red-brown velvet which was just
a shade browner than Annie Laurie's hair.

"But I ought to be a fine artist to do you jus-
tice," Carin protested, "not just a silly niggling
beginner. Just you wait, Annie Laurie! Some
day you are going to be a beautiful woman, and
by that time I hope to know enough to paint
you the way you ought to be."

Then there was a walk in the late afternoon,
and tea with Mrs. Kitchell at the Industries,
and then the stroll back in the lilac-tinted
air, and the fun of dressing together for dinner.

Annie Laurie could hardly make her own
toilet for watching Carin, as she came all fresh
from her bath, in her dainty garments, and

"THE DOLL LADY" 209

slipped into her simple, exquisite frock of cling-
ing white silk. A maid came to tie her corn-col-
ored scarf, and to wind the broad corn-colored
ribbon about her wonderful hair, which was
almost the same color, only full of light and
shine as no ribbon ever could be. Her slender
feet were in white, too, and about her neck was
a necklace of clouded amber beads.

"What a love you are," cried Annie Laurie.

"No more a love than you are yourself," re-
torted Carin. "Look!"

She swung her friend around to face the
cheval glass, and Annie Laurie saw her own tall,
almost haughty, young figure mirrored there, in
its plain, well fitting gown of black. She caught
a glimpse of her own pretty slippers with their
smart bows, of her straight fair neck — Carin
had forbidden her to wear her net yoke — and
of her red-brown hair wound around and around
her head.

"Talk about loves!" said Carin, and led her
friend down to the drawing room. There were
a number of persons there, it seemed, and Annie
Laurie had a confused moment as she was pre-
sented to them. She had not been in this room
before — at most had glimpsed it from the cor-

2IO ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

ridor. Now that she was in it, with the many
candles burning in their sconces, the flowers
everywhere in vases little and great, with the
delicate pinks and yellows of the draperies and
furniture making an effect like a wonderful
manufactured flower garden all about her, she
had a sick feeling of shyness and almost wished
that she had not accepted Mrs. Carson's invita-
tion.

"But that's being cowardly," she told herself
sharply. "And I'm not afraid of these people,
really. They're all kind and good. What I'm
afraid of is merely furniture! Now, who would
be afraid of wood and cloth and brass! Silly
goose!"

Some one — a pleasant-faced gentleman with
white hair — offered his arm to the "silly goose,"
and the next moment they were all making their
way to the dining room. It was wonderful
there, too. The lights seemed to be picked up
by the silver and the crystal and to be thrown
back in little sparks at Annie Laurie's dazzled
eyes. There was a bright, hurried talking all
about her; a talking she could not quite follow.
But she had got that new idea in her head, that
she was not to be afraid of things like silver and

"THE DOLL LADY" 211

glass and linen, and that certainly no reasonable
person could fear kind friends, and so, in a min-
ute or two, her shyness passed, and she was her-
self again.

There were delicious things passed her to eat,
and Annie Laurie wondered what they really
could be and why they tasted different from
anything she ever had eaten before The gentle-
man who had taken her out to dinner was very
kind, and talked to her about her lessons, and
the early coming of the spring, and how he had
not been in those parts previously, and how
much he liked it, and how he wished he did not
have to go back to Town. By Town, Annie Lau-
rie discovered that he meant New York.

Then, presently, the conversation died down,
and everyone seemed to be listening to the lady
who sat at Mr. Carson's right. Her name, it
seemed, was Miss Borrow, and she was known,
as Mrs. Carson explained, over the mountams
as "the doll lady." She had made a great study
of the mountain country, its flowers and trees,
its little wild, harmless creatures, furred and
feathered, and its lonely, quiet people. Some-
times she traveled for months in a wagon, sleep-
ing in a mountain cabin or in her wagon as the

212 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

case might be, eating at the simple, hospitable
tables of the mountaineers, or cooking by the
roadside. And because she was simple and
earnest and truly, truly, a friend to all the world,
she had been permitted to enter the hearts of the
people and they had learned to trust her and
to speak out to her almost as freely as they
would to one of themselves.

"But please tell us why you are called the
'doll lady,' Miss Borrow," said Carin. "I think
I know, but I would so love it if you would ex-
plain to Annie Laurie, ma'am."

"Well," said Miss Borrow, turning her dark,
rather sad eyes upon Annie Laurie, "it was this
way. I had not traveled far in the lonely, silent
country that lies back among the mountains, be-
fore I discovered that the saddest thing about it
all was the children — the little children who
had nothing to look forward to, and who did
not know how to laugh in the happy, free way
that children should. They got into bad and
silly ways because there was nothing for them
to do. So I fell to wondering how I could help
them enjoy themselves, and to tell the truth, I
hadn't to wonder very long, for almost imme-

"THE DOLL LADY" 213

diately it occurred to me that I would give them
toys.

"I decided that I would take the boys good
knives, so that they could make things, and
marbles and balls, so that they might have
games; and to the girls I would take dolls. I
have gone out from my starting point with hun-
dreds of the dearest, most delightful dollies you
could think of, tucked away in my wagon. I
have even had to have a second wagon to start
with, because of the many things I was carry-
ing along. At first there would be no need to
give these things at the houses at which I stayed
— the houses nearer the towns. But as I went
on and on, over this mountain, and down into
that valley and up over the next mountain, I
would come on the people who lived in the hol-
low land.

"They had few friends, or none. They went
nowhere. They had nothing to do, except
scratch the ground for a little food. One day
was like another; and in the faces of the children
was a look like that to be seen in the face of a
dog — a look of terrible wistfulness, as if there
was that in the soul which never could be ex-
pressed. To these children I brought my gifts.

214 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

The boys were glad of the knives and marbles
and balls; but nothing like so glad as the girls
were of the dolls. Many and many of them
never had seen a doll at all. Yet never once did
I have to tell them what they were for. They
simply reached out their arms and took them,
and hugged them up to them — not before peo-
ple, understand, but as soon as ever they
were alone.

"Some of these lonely little girls had hardly
known what it was to be kissed, and they
would have been ashamed to throw their
arms around their mother's necks and hug
and kiss them; but when they got alone
with dolly — their own, own dolly — they kissed
and hugged it as if they had been starved for
want of things like that. Then when I could
take along some extra things, so that they could
really change the doll's clothes, and wash and
iron for their pets, then, at last, they really had
something to do. They seemed to come to life
— not the dolls, but the little mothers. Perhaps
the dolls did, too. I'm not sure. They were
loved enough to make them."

"Oh, Miss Borrow," cried Mrs. Carson, "you

"THE DOLL LADY" 215

lucky, lucky woman, to be able to think of such
a lovely thing and to carry it out!"

"Lucky is that lucky does," said the old gen-
tleman beside Annie Laurie, twisting an old
saying to suit his purposes.

"Well," said Carin across the table, under
cover of the conversation, "that's why she's called
the 'doll lady,' Annie Laurie. Isn't it beauti-
ful?"

"Beautiful," replied the other. "And — and
why couldn't we help get some of the dolls ready,
Carin? And my aunts — if I could get them to
working on those dolls, perhaps they wouldn't
be worrying and wondering so much."

Mr. Carson overheard her remark, though it
was intended only for Carin.

"Excellent and sensible, Annie Laurie," he
said in his light way — that way which meant so
much yet seemed to mean so little. "You have
said a wise thing. I believe the Misses Pace are
to honor us with their presence at dinner to-
morrow, are they not, Lucy?"

"Yes," responded Mrs. Carson, "I am glad to
be able to say that they are."

"We will try then, as you say, my dear An-
nie .Laurie, to help the aunts find a new and in-

2i6 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

teresting occupation. We will give them —
some dolls to play with," smiled Mr. Carson.
For he knew, and Annie Laurie knew, that
the poor fretted old ladies needed them as much
as any heart-starved mountain child.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LONG RED ROAD

There was music after dinner, and Mrs. Car-
son asked Annie Laurie to sing. It was a great
moment in its way — that in which the shy girl
with the oriole's voice went out before all the
company to sing to Mrs. Carson's accompani-
ment. For a second or two she thought that she
really could not. Then it came over her that it
was a chance — that she who had lived that plain
drab life was standing now where beautiful col-
ors played about her. She was, she said to her-
self, in the heart of a rainbow. And a song was
a song, just as a piece of furniture was a piece
of furniture. She had already decided that she
was not to be afraid of upholstering and silver
and fine glass. Very well, then, why should she
be afraid of a song, since she really had a voice
and could sing? Her music lessons had been
stopped since her father's death, but Mrs. Car-
son often invited her to sing with her in the

schoolroom where Carin's piano stood, and she

217

2i8 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

was quite aware that she had learned more from
Mrs. Carson with her taste and her beautiful,
delicate fashion of expression than she could
from her teacher. So now, full, free, sad and
deep, her young voice arose in:

"All are sleeping, weary heart.
Thou, thou only sleepless art."

She thought of Sam away in his bare room,
bending over those puzzling accounts of hers,
working for her without pay, to redeem so far
as he could his father's terrible wrong. And as
she thought of him, and the beauty of the song
opened the doors of her heart, it seemed as if
all that distrust of mankind which had come to
her so bitterly when she first realized the great
wrong that had been done her, went drifting out
on the tide of song. So the lovely words to their
noble setting poured from her lips with a sort
of splendor, and when she had ceased, and had
stood for a moment, motionless, her slender
straight body tense with the rapture of it, she
had the great happiness of hearing sincere and
enthusiastic applause break from all the com-
pany in the drawing room.

Mrs. Carson and Carin were hardly less happy

THE LONG RED ROAD 219

than she. They made her sing again and again;
then Mrs. Carson forbade more.

"We'll not have our singing bird excited so
that she'll lose her sleep the first night she stays
under this roof," she said. And then she her-
self, at the solicitation of her guests, sang some
of those wonderful songs of hers. Annie Laurie
could not understand the words, for they were
now in one tongue and now another; but as the
music rose and fell, shifting in its beauty as a
sunset shifts it? colors, or as water ripples in the
wind, a great happiness flooded her. She sat
thrilling to it, moved to the core of her being
by its rhythm, and Mrs. Carson, arising from the
piano, came straight to her.

"Annie Laurie Pace," she said in her charm-
ing way, "I could feel all the strings of the
piano vibrating again in you. You are a true
musician. Sometime you and I will sit together
night after night and listen to opera."

"Oh!" Annie Laurie gasped. "It — it
couldn't be!"

"It shall be," smiled Mrs. Carson. "Wait,
child. Wait just a little while."

So, with a head full of new, rich ideas, the
girl lay down to sleep that night in the "poppy

220 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

room," as the little bedroom opening off Carin's
was called. Poppies decorated the wall, were
embroidered on the linen covers to dresser, chairs
and bed, and the spirit of poppies, sleep, hovered
lightly over the room.

The next day dawned beautifully — one of
those Sundays which seem to have the very
breath of holiness in them. Annie Laurie went
with the Carsons to the Episcopal Church, and
then they all drove over to the Methodist
Church for the aunts. They could see the two,
prim and starched, awaiting them on the high
church steps, and Mr. Carson leaped from the
carriage to assist the ladies down and to help
them into his vehicle. Annie Laurie couldn't
help giving an affectionate chuckle at the
labored propriety of their remarks. They had
on their best dresses and they were determined
to use their best language. But Mrs. Carson
gave no sign that she perceived their stiffness.
She chatted on in that winning way of hers, till
even the proud and difficult Aunt Adnah felt at
ease.

At dinner the conversation turned upon the
"doll lady," and Mr. Carson had an idea.

THE LONG RED ROAD 221

"I'll tell you what we'll do," "we'll hike itl
We'll trek it! We'll mush-mush!"

"Papa," Carin protested, " what ever do you
mean?"

"Mean? I mean we'll follow the long red
road, every one of us. Your mother, Carin, and
your friends Annie Laurie and Azalea, and Miss
Zillah and Miss Adnah. We'll take to the high
road — in mountain wagons — and we'll go gyp-
sying. It's the spring vacation — or we can make
it so if we have a mind. What do you say. Miss
Parkhurst? Shall we call it vacation? And will
you go with us over the mountains?"

"I'll call it vacation if you please, sir," smiled
Helena Parkhurst. "But if I have any time
away from my duties, I'd love to go home to my
mother. She's very lonely without me."

"You shall, then. Of course she's lonely with-
out you. But what do you say, ladies?" he
asked, turning to Annie Laurie's aunts.

Miss Adnah wiped her lips carefully before
replying.

"You are very kind indeed, sir, but I never
have done-such a thing in my life, though I must
say that I have rather envied people when I
saw them starting off on such an expedition."

222 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Of course you have envied them, and you
shall do so no longer. You shall go and know
the joys they have known. As for the dairy, Sam
will look after that. If necessary he can have
one of my men to help him. You are pleased, I
hope, MissZillah?"

Miss Zillah turned her faded, quiet eyes on
him, and smiled slowly.

*'Mr. Carson," she said "all my life I have
slept properly under a roof. I have done my
duty as I saw it to do. I have conducted my-
self, I hope, in a ladylike and discreet manner,
but — " she hesitated.

"But what, madam?"

"But from childhood I have longed to cook
my meal in a pot over a camp fire and to sleep
under the pines."

Everybody laughed.

"What's more," w^ent on Miss Zillah, show-
ing the shadow of a dimple in her withered
cheek, "I feel that I would love to run about in
a short skirt and tie a turban about my head."

"Delightful! Delightful," declared Mr. Car-
son. "We'll go by the middle of this week."

"But Mr. Carson, ought we?" Miss Adnah
broke in. "The — the expense — "

THE LONG RED ROAD 223

"Expense, madam? There's no expense. All
that is needed is time, and of that we have as
much as anybody living."

He held up a hand for silence, and in his rich
voice, warm with an almost boyish enthusiasm,
he repeated a poem he had read but whose author
he did not remember:

" 'Beyond the East, the sunrise, beyond the West,

the sea —
And East or West, the wander-thirst will never

let me be.
It works in me like madness, dear, to make me

say good-bye,
For the stars call and the sea calls, and O! the

call of the sky.

" 'I know not where the white road leads, nor

what the blue hills are.
But a man can have the sun for a friend, and for

his guide a star.
And there's no end of voyaging v/hen once the

voice is heard,
For the river calls and the road calls, and O! the

call of the bird.

*' 'Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by
night or day.

224 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

The old ships draw to home again, the young

ships sail away,
And come I may, but go I must, and if you ask

me why,
You may put the blame on the stars and sun, and

the white road and the sky.'

"Only it's the red road with us, ladies — the
long red road, and it winds up the mountains,
and down the mountains, and we'll follow it till
we long for home again."

"Oh," whispered Annie Laurie to Carin as
they walked from the dining room together,
"how fine it will be to get the poor aunts away
from that house where they worry and search,
and search and worry!"

"And don't you see," returned Carin, "that
papa is really having in the back of his mind the
idea that he may run across the Disbrows? He
thinks that, after all, Mr. Disbrow won't quite
dare spend that money — at least not much of it.
He could talk about going West but he hasn't
really the courage to go. He'll drive around in
the mountains, shooting a little, and grazing his
cow and horses, and eating up the chickens.

THE LONG RED ROAD 225

Papa says that's the way a man with his rearing
would do, probably. So we're to take to all
sorts of byroads and odd ways in the hope of
finding them."

"Really?" said Annie Laurie. "But— Oh,
Carin, if we found them! What a humiliation
for them!"

"Well, so far as Mr. Disbrow is concerned, I
think he has some humiliation coming to him,"
said Carin sharply.

Annie Laurie hated to tell Sam they were
going to the mountains. She feared he would
read in her eyes her knowledge of this second
intention — this hope of finding the fugitives.
Perhaps he did. He was very silent these days,
and he worked furiously. Annie Laurie tried
to get him to sit with them evenings, but he
would not. His old-time light-heartedness, pre-
served under so many difficulties, seemed to
have passed entirely. Yet he was not sullen
nor even sad — only very grave. He was indeed
fighting his battle, and it was not an easy one.

But little by little he could see — everyone
could see — that he was winning the respect of
the townspeople. Men went out of their way

226 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

to speak to him and to ask him how he was get-
ting on in his new business and to say they'd be
glad to help him out if he got in any difficulty.
Some of the nicest women in Lee invited him to
their homes; but to all such invitations Sam
sent a respectful refusal. He seemed determined
to keep to himself until he had won his right
to enter other men's doors as an honest boy, the
son of an honest man.

He helped with the preparations for the moun-
tain, saying nothing of his shamed and tortured
thought that his friends might come upon his
skulking family. Mr. Carson was to drive his
own team, and Benjamin, his man, vv^as to drive
Annie Laurie's horses. So, on a perfumed spring
morning the little caravan set off, with Mrs. Car-
son and the two Misses Pace in the Carson
wagon, and Carin and Azalea in Annie Laurie's.

Azalea was strangely excited by the idea of
the journey, though she tried to conceal the fact.
She could not forget how often she had gone
upon such long journeys in those wild, curious
days when she was a "show girl." Those days
now seemed like a fantastic dream. She felt as
if she always had been Azalea McBirney,
wrapped about with love and consideration; and

THE LONG RED ROAD 227

even the memory of her poor dead little mother
was like a gray shadow. True, it was a shadow
which arose often before her mental vision, but
the outlines of it grew fainter and fainter. Yet
Azalea loved it. She could not think of that
brave, yet broken woman, so out of place with
that sorry crew of show people, without a throb
of love. Death had, at last, seemed the only
happiness for her, and Azalea loved to think of
her as safe and at rest in that much-cared-for
lowly bed of hers beneath the Pride of India
tree beside Ma McBirney's door.

And, oh, the long red road! How it wound
up the hills and over them. What valleys it
glimpsed, what rivers, amber brown beneath the
trees, what spots of quietude and peace beneath
the pines, what sunny openings, where succulent
odors of grass, freshly sprung, came to the trav-
elers! And, oh, the delight of sleeping in the
hastily spread tents — which were really no more
than squares of canvas stretched on pointed
sticks — and the appetites that developed for the
meals cooked over the coals on the convenient
tripod!

Now one and now another of the ladies cooked
the meals, and they vied with each other in the

228 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

mixing of stews. They grew bold and tried
things they never had heard of, but which
seasoned with mountain air and tested with
mountain appetites, seemed the finest of discov-
eries. And the day and the night were sweet;
the wind was their playful companion; the
showers were their friends; the sun their great
protector; the moon their comforter and all the
stars were their intimates.

So the three girls grew browner and brighter-
eyed each day, and the heart in each of them —
even Annie Laurie's — was light as down.

But not a hint did they have of the Disbrows.
Though they plunged deeper and deeper into
the mountains, getting far beyond the towns,
they saw nothing of them. They went so far
that they came at last upon the lonely, sad-eyed
people whom Miss Borrow had described. In
their miserable cabins, which were far from
weatherproof, they lived their curious, solitary
lives. Their faces were vacant and mournful;
their voices like the soughing of wind in the
trees. They walked languidly, and there was a
strange and repellent pallor in their faces. Some-
times they sang a little, sitting before their doors

THE LONG RED ROAD 229

in the moonlight, and their voices rose and fell
with a curious cadence. The monotony of their
lives rested upon them like a deadly spell, per-
mitting them to nurse senseless hates and ani-
mosities, and to keep up foolish family feuds.

Now and then they came upon a desolate
schoolhouse, approached by little winding paths,
over which bare-footed children had run for
weary miles. For they prized their schooling
beyond all words to express.

"Whar is her who tells us how?" one little,
sallow-faced child had asked when she had run
eleven miles to the schoolhouse to find the
teacher absent. They heard such stories of
starved minds and all but starved bodies, and a
deep pity awoke in their hearts for these people
of their own blood and of an inheritance much
like their own.

"When we are a little older," said Azalea, her
eyes shining with a deep purpose, "we will come
back and teach them."

"Yes," said Annie Laurie. "We will teach
them to read and to sing."

"To read and to sing and to draw," said Carin.

"Very well," said Mr. Carson, laughingly and
yet with meaning. "And I'll send some one

230 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

along to help with such trifles as arithmetic,
geography, grammar, et cetera, and incidentally
I'll foot the bills. Is it a bargain?"
"It's a bargain," said they in chorus.

CHAPTER XIV

Hi's HOUN' DAWG

It was Saturday and Hi Kitchell and Jim Mc-
Birney, having done their chores, met by ap-
pointment at the spring under the tulip trees
where Azalea intended to build her bungalow
when she became very rich.

It was a lovely spot and they threw themselves
down in perfect content, their dogs near at hand,
and looked off at what Hi called a "purty worl'."

"It jes' seems like everything worth speakin'
about hed come my way," sighed Hi contently.
"You-all remember what a pore little forsaken
cuss I was, Jim, when me and 'Zalie came drag-
gin' along with that thar show of Sisson's a year
back an' more?"

" 'Taint more'n a year, Hi.'*

"Seems like a century. An' no sooner hed we

laid eyes on your pa and ma than things began

to go right. An' now look at us. 'Zalie's like

your sister and gettin' a tip-top education, and is

ofif ridin' the country over with the Carsons;

231

232 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

and me and ma hev a home anybody would be
proud to own, and that thar Industries busi-
ness is lookin' up more'n more every livelong
day. Why we're so happy we're in danger of
bustin'. I asked ma t'other day if she didn't feel
most like bustin', and she said she did."

''It's a good place to live here-abouts," agreed
Jim. "Pleasant things have a way of happenin'
'round here. If it wa'n't for that dod-gasted
hard luck of Annie Laurie's, I'd think this was
w^here the nicest folks in creation lived. But
some one done her a mean, low-down trick."

"It was that scowlin', grumblin' Disbrow,"
averred Hi. "I know it. Ma says she feels it
in her bones, and so do I, and Kitchell bones is
simply great for givin' pointers. I say, what's
the use in you and me loafin' 'round here while
that mis'able, sneakin' houn' gets off with Annie
Laurie's money? Ain't we her friends and as
nigh kin as she's got? What say to you and me
hikin' out after that thar Disbrow an' findin'
him and bringin' him back to justice?"

Hi's sharp black eyes sparkled with the high
intent of protecting the friendless. The bright
light of adventure shone round about him, and
Jim thrilled to it. Here was a friend worth hav-

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 233

ing — a friend like those knights of old of whom
Azalea read to him, one who would go out and
conquer. Jim stared ofif across the purple val-
ley, rejoicing in his good fortune at living in
days when there was still a man's work to do in
the world.

"Hi," he breathed after a time, "I'm with
you."

"Then," said Hi, with something of the air
of an Arctic explorer about to embark on his
hazardous voyage, "we must make ready. Thar's
no use in waitin' around here, dreamin' and
sighin' the way the rest of the town is doin'.
Let's get our grub together and be on our way."

"I wish I could take Peter," said Jim wist-
fully. Peter was his hound. "But he's got such
a sore foot I don't dast. Ma, she doctors it up
every morning and she says we'll have to be
mighty careful or we won't have no dog at all —
he'll die from blood poisonin'."

"It's too bad," agreed Hi, "but we-all ken take
Bike." Bike, Hi's hound, wagged his tail in
recognition of the attention paid him.

"It will make me feel awful bad for you to
take Bike and me to be goin' along without no
dog at all," mused Jim.

234 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

There seemed to be no limit to Hi's chivalry
to-day.

"Well then, by gum, I won't take Bike," he
declared, his face lighting with the glow of
sacrifice. Jim was not unappreciative.

"Honest, Hi!"

"Honest."

"Well then, let's send the dogs home and we
can go right on from here. We don't need no
provisions. I've got some money — "

"So have I."

"What's the use of delayin' then. Let's set
off."

So the dogs were commanded to go to their
respective homes, and with lowered tails and
drooping ears, they obeyed. Bike writhed along
on his belly, beating the ground with his tail.
He actually shed tears of humiliation and de-
pression, but Peter, more absorbed with the dis-
comfort in his foot, limped lamely and obedi-
ently on his way toward home.

"Pore houn's," sighed Hi, "they sure are cast
down."

"Ain't it just their luck," Jim sympathized.
"Pore critters."

Both boys were talking their worst and en-

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 235

joying it. This spang-up grammar was well
enough to catch on to when a fellow was tally-
ing with Mrs. Carson, or even to Azalea, but
there was such a thing as letting down and en-
joying oneself when the ladies were out of the
way. Men must be men now and then.

So, in all the freemasonry of their kind, the
two set ofif across the mountain. Neither one
would have confessed that the "wander-thirst"
was on them too. But the truth was, Mr. Car-
son had set a most infectious example. Moun-
tain folks have pretty hard work staying at home.
The roads call, and they long to be up and away.
It always seems as if something wonderful must
be waiting for them over the next hill. Jim and
Hi had the gypsy mood on them this day. They
actually ran for a long time, taking the cut-offs
that led them over the spur of the mountain to
Mulberry Valley, which lay "over-yon" and
which they had seldom visited, and then always
under the guidance of some grown person who
insisted on pushing them along and getting home
again.

Getting home seemed to them just now as the
last thing in the world that a fellow would care
to do. What was the use in getting home when

236 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

a person could run along paths bordered with
trim huckleberry bushes, or rest on a stone where
lichen had woven a pale green lace? There
were partridge berries peeping up between dark
green leaves; here was tender wintergreen;
yonder the "sweet buds" were coming out,
weighting the air with their fruity odor. Dear
me, why should anybody go home?

There was an eagle hanging over the valley,
strong, and calm, and sure. Three buzzards sat
on a blasted pine and shook their evil heads; a
king snake gave them a chase and got away from
them in spite of their best endeavors. And still
the little path went on and on. It passed by a
deserted house, where the bats hung from the
roof. It wound by wooded hills and fields that
once had been tilled, but had perhaps proved
too unfertile, and so been left; it crept on up the
farther mountain, — the unknown mountain —
and still coaxed, and lured, and solicited; and
the boys kept on.

Their brown, dusty feet had grown weary and
their throats were dry when at length they came
upon a cabin. They weren't sure at first whether
it was lived in or not. The heavy shutters —
there were no windows — were closed, but the

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 237

door stood slightly ajar. The chimney, which
was made of field stone held together with the
red clay of the field, blossomed like a garden
with ferns and vines. The yard was bare of
grass, but the old stone wall round about it was
overgrown with green things, though it was still
so early in the year, and the myrtle and mimosa
showed their green beside that of the laurel and
rhododendron. There w^as a small well with a
sweep, and on the bench lay a broken gourd
which had been used as a drinking cup. But
over the place was the deepest silence, save for
one early bee which made a cheerful buzzing,
and seemed to fairly boom, so still was the place.

'T say," whispered Hi, "don't it look spooky?"

"Maybe a hermit lives here," Jim suggested.

"Or a skelington," added Hi.

It was Hi who had the courage to push back
the warped door and look in. Jim was a few
feet behind him and he never forgot the yell of
horror that came from Hi's throat, a yell that
had fear in it, fear for the next second's happen-
ing. Jim heard a swishing and a hissing, and he
knew. Neither formed the word ^Wattlers!" on
their frozen tongues. Hi tried to leap back-
ward and fell over a stub of a bush and lay

238 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

prone. Jim seized his arm and dragged him
along for a dozen feet, and even in the rush they
could hear their hearts beating frantically. That
swishing and hissing kept up. It seemed to
grow louder. Hi turned himself and got on his
feet like a monkey. They both ran without look-
ing behind. And after they had started and had
got away from the real danger, they began to
fear imaginary evils. Panic was on them. With
their blistered bare feet they sped on and on,
taking no note of where they were going. Their
throats, which had been dry to start with, be-
came like paper. Their eyes bulged from their
heads. They had started out great heroes, but
they had undergone a transformation and were
two terribly frightened and tired little boys.

Even as they sank exhausted beneath a pine
tree they looked about them shudderingly for
snakes, but seeing none they lay there and gasped,
their hearts straining in their sides. Then, as
their panting ceased, a soft noise struck their
ears. It sounded very familiar, and yet in
their utter bewilderment they could not at first
tell what it was. The meaning penetrated first
to Jim.

"A spring," he whispered. "A spring!"

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 239

They made their way toward it, dragging
their feet like weary dogs, and when they saw it,
clear, cold and beautiful, gushing from the
ground amid wild forget-me-nots, they sank on
their knees and drank long. After that they
lay still, staring at the sky. The world swam
before them dreamily, the clouds rocked back
and forth; they slept.

When they awoke it was dark. It was not just
partly dark as it is most nights of the year. No,
it was black. They might have been shut up in
a black velvet box or lost in a large bottle of
black ink. There was nothing above, below,
around, so far as their sense could inform them.
It was Jim who had opened his eyes first. At
least, he thought he had opened them, but when
he found he could see nothing at all he had his
doubts about having done it. He felt of his
eyelids. Yes, they were open, beyond doubt.
Had he then suddenly gone blind? He couldn't
imagine why he should, and yet, judging from
his present plight, it seemed probable.

"Hi!" he shouted, as if Hi were on the other
side of a forty-acre lot.

Hi's voice answered close at hand, sleepily.

"Yep!"

240 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Hi, I believe I've gone blind. I can't see
nothing — not a blamed thing."

There was a short silence.

"I can't neither," cried Hi. "Maybe we're
both blind."

"It's being so hungry, I reckon," said Jim.
"Don't you think a fellah could get so run down
from eatin' nothing that he'd go blind?"

"I reckon he might," sighed Hi.

Silence fell again. They could hear the need-
les as they fell from the trees, the low whisper-
ing of the spring, and the far-away sound of
wind or rain, they were not sure which.

Then suddenly they knew that they were not
blind. All the world was lit up — lit up terribly
and then engulfed in darkness again. Then the
thunder came, clamoring and roaring about
them. They were mountain boys and they had
heard thunder roar and rumble over the hills
many times, but had it ever had such a frightful
bellow as this? It kept on and on and before
the first volley had quite died, again the world
was lighted with that fiery light — that forked
flame — and again the voice of the sky awoke the
thousand voices of the hills.

"Oh, gosh!" groaned Hi.

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 241

"Ain't there no place to hide?" demanded Jim
with trembling voice.

No, there was no place to hide. The storm
king owned everything around there that night.
It was all his domain and he meant to do with
it as he would. So he blasted an oak, and the
boys saw it; and he cracked his horrid whip at
the invisible horses of the air, and they rushed
by screaming. And then the rain came; not
drop by drop as rain should, but in drops that
chased each other so that they became streams;
in streams that became inverted fountains.

The boys couldn't even call out to each other.
They fought for breath as the furious winds
whipped them and the drenching rain engulfed
them almost like a wave It was a cloudburst,
they knew that much, and finally, from mere
animal instinct, they turned their faces to the
ground, wreathed their arms about their heads
and lay prone. Still the lightning flashed and
the thunder bellowed; still the winds wailed
and the trees snapped. It seemed at last merely
a question of keeping alive till it was over.

But by and by it was over. It ceased almost
as suddenly as it had come, and weak as half-
drowned rats the two boys got to their feet, and

242 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

looking up into a clear sky, saw the morning star
shining down at them.

"We've got to get home," said Jim, breathing
deep.

"Yes," agreed Hi.

It was some time before they could find any
sort of a trail whatever, but after a while they
came upon one, though whether it had been made
by human feet long since and overgrown, or
whether it was merely a rabbit run they could
not decide. However, they decided to take it.
The dawn was flushing the sky and they could
make their way without much difiiculty now, so
far as seeing was concerned, but their feet were
blistered and their bodies felt as sore as if they
had been pounded. They went on and on, dog-
gedly.

"We're bound to come to a road soon," they
kept telling each other.

"Oh, yes, we'll get somewhere."

And they got "somewhere," beyond any man-
ner of doubt. Lifting their eyes at length, they
saw before them that frightful cabin of "rat-
tlers," and stealing to the door to greet the
brightly shining sun was a fine, confident father
of rattlers. Hi gave one despairing whoop and

HI'S HOUN' DAWG 243

fled, Jim following, and once more they sped
on, taking however an opposite direction from
that of the night before and trying to keep their
faces toward home. There was the mountain
before them to cross, and then Mulberry Val-
ley, and then there was Tennyson mountain to
climb. It was really quite simple.

"Anybody ought to be able to do that," said
Hi stoutly.

But the trouble was that after an hour's hard
plodding they came to a sort of opening and
thought they had reached a road at last, and
there before them once more was the House of
Rattlers. And that was the time they gave up
and cried. They dared not stay near there, so
they went on their way hastily, but not running
now, sobbing as they went.

They were lost, that was all there was to it.
They were quite completely lost on a mountain
they never had visited before — a mountain
where nobody lived and where the only neigh-
borly things were rattle snakes.

They were both wondering if they were go-
ing to die there, to starve and be heard of no
more. Of course, years and years from then
their "skelingtons" might be found. But how-

244 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

ever interesting that might be for others, it really
would do them no good at all, when you came
to think of it.

Ugh, how chilly the morning air was! And
how wet their clothes were! And how empty
their stomachs! And the rattlers — the rattlers!

There was a strange, bell-like sound in the
distance, a deep, musical, beautiful sound. It
rang over the hills with a note at once sad and
glad. The boys stopped in their tracks and
listened. It came again, like church bells, only
faster. It thrilled the two forlorn wanderers,
and brought the light back to their faces.

"Bike!" shouted Hi. "It's Bike. He's fol-
lowed us. Oh, Bike, Bike, here we are, you
blessed old houn' dawg! Here! Here!"

They put their fingers in their mouths and
whistled, they shouted, they laughed, they
hugged each other; and then, over a rise came
Bike, wild-eyed with delight, large, it seemed,
as a bear, and bursting with importance.

He leaped on them till he knocked them down;
he insisted on licking their faces, on pretending
to bite their calves, on lathering them as if they
were puppies. He couldn't have enough of

HFS HOUN' DAWG 245

1

them nor they of him. But after all, he came
to his senses sooner than they.

"Enough of this," he seemed to say. "For
goodness sake, let's be getting home."

He turned his back on them and started over
the rise, wagging his tail and giving vent to
sharp, scolding barks.

"A fine lot of trouble you've put me to," he
appeared to be saying. "Hustle yourselves nov^^
and get home. Don't you knov^ your folks are
worried to death about you? Such boys! Such
boys! It wears a respectable hound out trying
to take care of you."

And the boys understood and agreed with him.
So they followed meekly enough, limping first
on one foot and then on the other and calling to
him every few minutes not to go so fast.

They went on for hours and hours, as it
seemed, but at last they stood beneath the tulip
trees by the spring on Azalea's plateau.

"Well," said Hi, "this here is whar we part.
We-all don't seem to be bringin' the Disbrows
back to get their just punishment."

"I reckon we'd better not say much about
punishment," grinned the leg-weary Jim. "So
long. Hi. Hope it don't hurt much."

246 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"Same to you," called Hi. He and Bike were
already on their way down the mountain, and
Jim, tired almost to collapse, made his way
up the road to where Ma McBirney paced back
and forth, pouring out her soul in prayer.

But Pa McBirney seemed to have some feel-
ings which did not come under the head of grati-
tude for his son's return. He knew what such a
night of torture meant to the dear woman be-
side him, who already had suffered too many
shocks. He looked Jim over with a sternly par-
ental eye.

"If you got what's coming to you, son," he
said, "you'd be well lathered."

"I know it, sir," said Jim with conviction.

Pa hesitated. He was a gentle man.

"Well," he said, "if you know it, and if you
think you'll remember it, latherin' wouldn't
teach you nothing. Go in with your ma and
get some food, and then wash yourself up and
go to bed. Ma'd better give you some of that
salve o' hern for your feet. And Jim — "

"Yes, sir."

"You watch out jest as hard as you can, and
don't grow up a plumb fool."

"Yes, sir," said Jim.

CHAPTER XV

THE VOICE IN THE MIST

It has been said that Mr. Carson set an ex-
ample for the people at Lee which many were
tempted to follow. And partly it was the spring
calling them; partly it was an itching desire to
find the Disbrows. Lee was pretty well dis-
gusted with itself as time went on, for not start-
ing after the absconding undertaker and his
family immediately after their disappearance,
and they told themselves they certainly would
have done it if Mr. Carson hadn't been so dead
set against it. And he was put up to acting the
way he did, they knew, by Annie Laurie, who
was too soft-hearted altogether.

It was a little surprising, all things considered,
that the Reverend Absalom Summers should
have been the next after Hi and Jim to yield to
the temptation to take to the hills. Resisting
temptation, as his little wife pointed out to him,
ought to be his specialty. But he contrived to

down her argument.

247

248 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"You don't seem to understand my noble soul
at all, Barbara," he said. "My real reason for
taking to the hills is that I want to visit my two
uncles back on Longstreet Mountain."

"But why should you visit them, Absalom,
dear? Do you really care about seeing them?
Aren't they two quarrelsome old men?"

"Well, they are some quarrelsome, Barbara,
and that's why I think I ought to see them, carry-
ing a dove of peace on my shoulder."

"They'd kill a dove of peace and eat it,
wouldn't they?" she asked laughingly. "Don't
they shoot everything in sight?"

"Pretty nigh," agreed Absalom. "They cer-
tainly do have nervous dispositions. They own
a lot of land up there on Longstreet Mountain,
and the two of them used to live side by side.
But their chickens were so inquisitive about what
was doing in the next yard, and they got so
mixed up running through the fence and for-
getting which place was home, that there was a
row on early and late between my uncles. It
was the same with the calves. If they wanted to
break into a field and eat up the corn, they al-
ways picked out the field of the next door neigh-
bor. And that made the brothers just dancing

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 249

mad. Then once Uncle Ephriam shot a hound
of Uncle Aaron's — said he thought it was a tim-
ber wolf.

"And so it went. There was always trouble.
When they heard I'd become a preacher they
sent for me to come up and straighten things
out. I stayed up there a month and talked
things over and I couldn't get either old stiff-
neck to give an inch. So I worked out a plan.
Aaron had a likely building site for his house,
but Uncle Ephriam's was on a slope and water
ran into the cellar when it rained. Well, just in
front of them was a deep ravine — mighty pretty
it is too. I proposed that Ephriam should move
across to the other side of that gulley. I told
him if he would, I'd stay and help him put up
his house. So Aaron bought Ephriam's old
house to use for a barn, and Ephriam moved —
chickens, stock, truck and all — across the gulley.
We got him a nice sizable house there, and set-
tled him and his wife as comfortable as you
please. It was altogether too much work for
the calves and the chickens to get across that
crack in the earth, and so everyone lived in
peace."

"That was fine. But why should you leave

2SO ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Jonathan and me to go to see them if they're
doing so well?"

"They aren't doing so well as you might think,
wife. No sooner had I got those families separ-
ated, by a convulsion of nature, so to speak, than
they took to pining for each other."

^'Nonsense, Absalom."

"It's a fact, my dear. They were as lonely as
owls. Said they didn't have anyone to talk to,
and that it wore them all out plunging up and
down that gulley."

"Well, what can you do about that? You
don't propose moving Uncle Ephriam back
again, do you?"

"Not at all, Barbara, not at all. I merely pro-
pose making conversation easy and simple for
them."

"With a telephone?"

"Not at all. A telephone would be out of
place in the hands of my reverend uncles. I
can't precisely tell you why, but you'll have to
take my word that it would. No, what I pro-
pose to do is to carry them megaphones."

"Megaphones, Absalom!"

"Certainly. Megaphones will become them.
They are sturdy, seafaring sort of men — "

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 251

"Why, they've never seen the sea!"

"Don't be so literal, dear. They are sturdy,

space-roaming, wilderness-faring men in whose

hands megaphones will be appropriate. I shall

strap one on each side of my horse and set forth

-to-morrow."

"But will you get your sermon prepared?"

"I shall prepare it while I'm riding. Seri-
ously, Barbara, the wild man in me is uppermost.
You have tried to civilize me. Our young son
has labored to do the same thing. But you
scratch a Russian and find a Tartar; and you
scratch a mountain man and you find a rover."

"And you've been scratched, wild man?"

"I have. I'm ofif to-morrow. Bear with me,
dear. I'll come back as tame as a house cat."

Barbara looked at him with shining eyes.

"You'll have a wonderful sermon," she said.
"I know you, dear. Go to your hills — "

"From whence," broke in the Reverend Absa-
lom, his voice changing, "cometh help."

So away he went in the early morning, knap-
sack well filled, blankets rolled, and a mega-
phone dangling from eath side of his excellent
horse.

Yes, he was glad to leave domesticity and

252 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

towns behind him; glad to be away from the
sound of voices and from the need of proprie-
ties. He was a hill man, after all, he told him-
self, and lifting his face to the sky he thanked
God that he was. They satisfied him, these an-
cient mountains which once had been lofty peaks
and which through all the changing centuries
had crumbled and shrunken till they were the
friendly little mountains that he knew. They
were so old — so old and so full of secrets. And
they satisfied his restless, longing, laughing,
dreaming soul, the curious soul of Absalom Sum-
mers, which differed from all the other souls on
earth. Yes, he mused, each soul must differ from
another, as the stars in heaven differ.

On he rode through the long day, thinking,
dreaming, living a deep and silent life. At
night he made his meal, fed his horse, smoked
his pipe and thought of his sermon. The stars
rolled over him in their silent and majestic
courses, and beneath them he knelt to pray for
his wife and babe, those inestimably dear treas-
ures of his, those lovely creatures of the hearth-
side. They liked their roof; he liked his sky.
Well, blessings on them, and might he be for-
given if he harbored too wild a nature in his

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 253

bosom 1 It was not a silent prayer that the Rev-
erend Absalom put up. Far from it. He
shouted to the whispering pines; he addressed
the distant stars; he felt as if he must send his
voice beyond the barriers of silence and reach
his God. For that was the kind of man the Rev-
erend Absalom was.

Then, as trusting as a child in his mother's
arms, he laid him down to sleep. For he felt the
"Everlasting Arms" about him.

The next morning he arose at sunup and went
singing on his way. He breakfasted at about
seven o'clock, and stimulated by his powerful
cup of coffee — which, truth to tell, was a fear-
some liquid — he pushed onward. The road he
had chosen was difficult to keep and hard to
traverse. There were, of course, easier ways of
reaching Longstreet Mountain, but in order to
reach them he would have had to take a train,
and nothing was further from his inclination at
present than riding by steam. He wanted just
what he was having, the heave of good horseflesh
beneath him.

The day passed without events other than the
sort he desired: the lift of a bird from a bush,
the rippling of a stream across his path, the nos-

254 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

ing of the horse at the ford, a burst of laurel
blossoms in a sunny path. He went on, whistling
and singing. Oftenest it was his old, best-loved
hymn : "A mighty fortress is our Lord."

Along late in the afternoon a mist began to
gather over the mountain. It blurred everything
delicately; it put a soft, filmy veil over the face
of the landscape and enhanced its beauty by so
doing. But after a while it began to be a bit eerie.
As the wanderer cooked his evening meal it
seemed as if shadowy white figures drew near,
bending over him, and then flitting away as he
arose. It did no more than amuse him, of course.
He knew the tricks of the mountain mist. But
he couldn't help remembering how terrified he
had been once as a child when he had been out
on a night much like this, and had had a five
mile walk alone with a lantern in his hand,
which seemed to summon ghostly figures from
the roadside.

"It would be a bad night for a man with a
bad conscience," he said aloud. "He would
think there were avenging spirits on his track,
sure enough. Come to think of it, I've plenty
of things to have a bad conscience about myself.
I'd better be watching out or the goblins will

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 255

get me. And whatever would wife Barbara
and baby Jonathan do then, poor things!

The place where he had lighted his camp fire
was in a little hollow and the mist gathered very
thickly there, so he concluded that it would be
better to go on farther up the mountain. It was
possible that he might find an airier place where
the draft would keep the heavier clouds away.
So once more he put his horse to the path and
went on silently, rather weary, and heartily wish-
ing that the night were fair.

He was very far from the beaten road, in a
place so solitary that he could not hope to meet
anyone, so it was with no little surprise that he
found himself, suddenly, almost upon a group
of human beings. They were sitting, three of
them, around a fire, well wrapped from the
chill. There was a sort of rude hut beside them,
fashioned of saplings and thatched with pine
boughs. Here, apparently, they slept. They
were not then like himself, wanderers, but camp-
ers. Well, it was a quiet place for a camp, and
no doubt a sightly one —

His thoughts broke off like a thread that is
snapped. He recognized the persons at whom
he was looking. They were the Disbrows ! They

256 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

were the fugitives. At first he thought of going
right up to them, but something withheld him.
He could hear Mrs. Disbrow's voice, and he
slid from his horse and having tied him, crept
nearer with as much stealth and skill in silence
as an Indian, that he might listen. There were
things he felt that he must know, and that as
Sam's friend he had a right to know.

"I don't mean to go on, pa," Mrs. Disbrow
was saying. "What's the use of going on? What-
ever would it mean for me but another house
to look after, and me lacking the strength to do
it? Hannah would drudge and drudge, and
that's all there'd be to it. Living like this there
aren't any pantry shelves to clean or doorsteps
to scrub. That's a great point to a woman with
no elbow grease. You understand, pa, it's been
pretty dull for me these last few years back.
You can't tell what it is to lie awake all night
wondering if the morning will ever come, and
when the morning comes, hating it because the
light tears your eyes out and the noise splits
your ears."

"But you seem to stand the light and the noise
here well enough, ma."

"So I do. That's why I want to stay. The

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 257

only noise is what the crickets and birds make,
with now and then a bee humming or an owl
screeching. And the light is green, coming
through the trees. Why, it's as if a thousand
years had rolled off my back. There's no one
around wondering about me, and trying this
trick and that to get a sight of me."

"No one ever did that, ma," cried out the
shrill voice of Hannah. "That was just your
imagination. It was your being sick made you
think that way."

"Well, however that may be, out here we're
free. Now I propose, since you've got some
money, pa, that we move around here and there,
like a nice family of bears — the father, and the
mother and the baby bear."

She gave a curious, unaccustomed laugh.
Then suddenly she turned toward her husband,
and Mr. Summers could see her wild eyes gleam-
ing in the firelight.

"But what I can't make out, Hector," she
said, "is where you got that money. Why don't
you talk out the way a husband should to a
wife? Here we've been living so close to the
wind that we hadn't enough to satisfy us, and
Hannah's been going without enough to clothe

258 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

her decently. Now, of a sudden, your pockets
are full of money I What does it mean. Hector?
And why did you clear out of Lee in the night?
When you gave the word to go I was feeling so
dull in my head that I didn't care whether the
thing was right or wrong. But now I seem to
have come to life. I've got to thinking again,
like I was a real human being. And Hector — "

Her voice carried on the air with the wild note
of a loon.

"Hector!"

"Well, ma, go on, for goodness sake."

"How did it come that you got that money
just when Simeon Pace's money disappeared?
Tell me that, husband! Tell me you didn't have
anything to do with it! My life's been queer
and dark, but it's been honest. You've turned
out a different man from what I thought you'd
be. I hoped on and on for you, but you didn't
get anywhere, and I got worn out and took to my
bed and meant never to get out of it. But even
when you'd taken all the spunk out of me I
never thought you was anything but honest. Are
you. Hector? Are you honest — or a thief?"

It wrung Summers' heart; yet he knew that
the time had come for judgment. He had been

THE VOICE IN THE MIST 259

a boy of wild pranks and he loved a prank still.
An idea came flashing into his head. He crept
back to his horse, loosened one of the mega-
phones and put it to his mouth, and in that voice
w^hich had electrified great camp meetings, mag-
nified many times by the horn, he bellowed into
the mist:

"Disbrow, thief! Give back the money you
stole! Make restitution! Return the money of
the orphan! Simeon Pace is in his grave, and
his orphan's money is in your pocket! Disbrow,
thief!"

The great megaphone waved up and down in
the air, and the accusing voice was borne to the
group around the fire, as if carried on winds
from the furthermost heaven. In the white
gloom, with the wreathing wraiths of the mist
dancing about them, the dark cavern below, the
sighing trees above, the monstrous voice, like
that of an angry angel, besieged their ears. Sum-
mers was too far from them to see them cower,
and he could not see their stricken faces. His
heart secretly misgave him for what he might be
doing to the woman and the girl, but he did not
flinch for all that. He gave out one last call :

"Make restitution! To-morrow at sunrise set

26o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

out upon your journey. Do not pause till wrong
has been made right. This is the first warning.
Beware the second!"

The mountain echoes caught it up and shouted
the words back, while up and down the chasm
below the roadway the mist figures writhed and
climbed. Summers mounted his horse and stole
back the way he had come till he reached the
bottom of the gulch, then taking the path on the
other side of it, he proceeded on his way. It was
almost dawn when he drew rein, tethered his
horse, and laid him down to sleep.

"I hope," he said to his horse, "that I haven't
scared those poor women to death. But it had
to be, you see — nothing else for it." And then
suddenly he burst into a wild torrent of laugh-
ter. It rolled out of him in waves; it shook him
like a convulsion. And having eased his soul,
he lay down and slept.

CHAPTER XVI

GOOD FOR EVIL

The Carsons and the Paces, with Azalea, came
driving home one chilly evening in a light fall
of rain. They were tired and cold and had alto-
gether an after-the-picnic sort of feeling. In-
deed, when Azalea, who was to stay in the val-
ley for the night, and Annie Laurie had helped
the aunts into the house, they found them so
travelworn that they insisted that they should get
into bed at once and have their suppers brought
to them.

A few weeks before, Aunt Adnah would have
perished rather than submit to such an indignity,
no matter how comfortable she found it. And
Aunt Zillah would not have indulged in such
a luxury with her sister's stern eye upon her.
But more and more Annie Laurie's determined
will was having its way in that household, and
when to her command was added Azalea's im-
portunities, the aunts yielded.

Sam had the fires burning for them in a few

261

262 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

minutes, and as the old ladies undressed and
toasted their shins before the blaze, and thought
of the two competent young girls down in the
kitchen who were preparing supper for them,
they experienced the luxurious feeling of those
who are old, well-loved, and carefully looked
after.

''If they were girls who would be getting
everything out of its place," said Miss Zillah to
Miss Adnah, "I don't suppose we'd feel as com-
fortable as we do; but they take hold just as we
would ourselves. I'm bound to say that I
wouldn't know how to stand on my feet to get
supper to-night."

"And here Annie Laurie has filled those new
fangled water bottles for us, and looked out our
warmest nightgowns. We certainly have a lot
to be thankful for, Zillah. When brother passed
away I thought that I would just naturally step
in and take charge of things — I believed I had
the strength for it and the brains for it, — but it
seems it was not to be. Whether it was the
shock of Simeon's death or merely that I'm get-
ting old, I wouldn't undertake to say, but cer-
tainly I'm not the woman I was. Why, suddenly
when I think to be the strongest, I find myself

GOOD FOR EVIL 263

all shaky in the knees and confused in the head."

"It's just the nervous shock, sister. You'll be
all right by and by. Trouble is like sickness, it
takes a while to recuperate from it."

There was a knock at the door and Annie
Laurie entered bearing a tray. Behind her was
Azalea with another. Tea, toast, little golden
omelettes, preserves and other dainties tempting
to the appetites of two jaded old ladies appeared
on the best dishes and the whitest napery that
could be found in the Pace household.

"My, my, what a fuss you make over us," said
Aunt Adnah, disapprovingly. "I'm sure the
common dishes would have done perfectly well,
Ann."

Annie Laurie shook her finger at her aunt.

"Don't you call me Ann," she laughed. "The
best dishes are none too good for you two; and
anyway, we're celebrating because we're home I"

Aunt Zillah narrow^ed her eyes in a way she
had.

"You're sure you love your home, child, now
that there are only us two old souls in it, and
that we're so poor and all?"

"Of course I love my home," declared Annie
Laurie. "I should say I did! And we're not go-

264 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

ing to be poor. I simply won't be poor. And I
don't feel poor anyway. It's so meachin to feel
poor! Please don't use the word, Aunt. How
can you, when we have a fire like this and sup-
pers as good as those on the trays, and when we
can ask a friend in whenever we please, and go
on lovely vacations? Poor!"

She gave a little shiver of disgust at the word.

"Well, I'm sure you do put heart into one,"
sighed Aunt Zillah, as if she needed all the good
cheer that anybody could spare her. "Some-
times I do think we're falling off in our spirits,
Adnah and I."

The girls stood laughing and talking with
the aunts a few minutes more, and then ran down
to get their own suppers.

"Let's eat it before the living room fire,"
said Azalea. "We'll put it on the sewing table."

"And we'll have Sam to eat with us. He sim-
ply must, that's all, we've so much to tell him,"
added Annie Laurie.

It was a much easier thing for Azalea to cook
the supper than it was for Annie Laurie to per-
suade Sam to come in and eat with them. But
the bright-faced girl, with her good will shin-
ing in her face, succeeded in overcoming his

GOOD FOR EVIL 265

scruples. It was very hard for so social a crea-
ture as Sam to keep to himself, holding before
himself the hard fact:

"I am the son of a man who is under suspi-
cion. I must not be the friend of honest folk
until I am proved of an honest family."

To-night, at any rate, he permitted himself to
forget. So, while the rain dashed against the
windowpane, the three sat, warm and dry, in
the familiar room and ate their supper, while
the girls told stories of the curious people they
had seen, and of the nice and interesting ones,
and of dangers from which they had thrillingly
escaped.

In the midst of it there came a knock at the
door.

"I'll go," said Annie Laurie, "I'm nearest.
Who can it be on such a night?"

She flung wide the door, and then as the other
two turned to see who it was, she half closed it
again, involuntarily, and stepped back. Some-
thing was the matter, Sam perceived as he started
to his feet; then he saw Annie Laurie fling open
the door again and back away from it.

"Come in," she said in a strange voice.

And a man entered with a curiously swift

266 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

movement, almost as if he were hunted. The
rain ran from his clothes and his beard; he was
covered with red clay, and he seemed to shrink
from observation. Yet after a second he took
off his hat, and then Sam saw that it was his
father. Mr. Disbrow came into the room at
last and closed the door behind him.

"Father I" Sam breathed, but Annie Laurie
held up her hand and Sam said no more. She
seemed for the moment to be carried out of her-
self, and to cease to be a very young and inex-
perienced girl, and to take on the grave look
of one who was sitting in judgment.

Disbrow's eyes, usually so wavering, fixed
themselves on Annie Laurie's. They were quite
on a level, these two, as to height, but the man
looked broken and beaten; the girl was strong
and free and, in her simple way, proud. She
stood there waiting, and Disbrow came on
toward her.

"I've come to make it up to you, miss," he
said with trembling lips. "I've come to give
back what I took from you."

Above the crackling of the fire and the beat-
ing of the rain on the windows they heard her
say:

''Come in," she said in a strange voice.

GOOD FOR EVIL 267

"I am glad."

The man tore off his dripping coat, and tak-
ing a knife from his pocket, began cutting at the
lining. He took out package after package of
bills and laid them on the table. And still he
clipped, and still the money appeared from the
wadded lining of the coat. Then he flung the
coat on a chair.

"I'll leave it there," he said. "If there is
more you can find it." He folded his arms and
looked at the girl.

"Well, that's over," he said. "I tried to go on
with the plan I'd laid out for myself, but I
couldn't sleep for thinking I was a thief. And
then a voice came from Heaven and told me so.
Don't smile at that, miss — my poor wife heard
the voice, and Hannah heard it. I've left them
out in the mountains and God only knows what
will come to them, for I reckon you'll be want-
ing to hand me over to the sheriff."

"Oh, Mr. Disbrow," cried Annie Laurie,
"you know I'll not do anything of the kind. I
couldn't do such a thing to an old neighbor, and
to Sam's father at that!"

Disbrow raised one arm in the air.

"I'll make a clean breast of everything now,"

268 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

he said in his deep quavering voice. "Sam ain't
my boy; nor he ain't my wife's boy. He's taken
from the asylum, Sam is. We thought we wasn't
going to have a child, and we took him and never
told him. Anybody could see he wa'n't our boy,
if they'd had sense."

Annie Laurie half turned. There was a con-
suming pity in her heart, and a great hope that
Sam would not disappoint her. And he did not.
He took three strides and stood by the man he
had all his life called father.

"I reckon we won't go back on the relation-
ship," he said. "If you took me out of an asylum
and cared for me when I was little, I don't mean
to go back on you just now, sir, when you're —
when you're down on your luck."

"He's not down on his luck," said Annie Lau-
rie in her clear tones. "He's a lucky man to
have the courage to bring back the thing he took
that wasn't his, Sam. Not everyone could have
done it. You ought to feel proud of a father
who could do that, Sam."

"I am," said Sam. "I'm mighty proud of
him."

Their youth, and the generosity of their youth,
their desire to do the best they could for each

GOOD FOR EVIL 269

other's sake, had winged them up to that high
place where Mercy sits. Azalea, watching
them, thrilled to think they were her friends.
They were doing precisely what Ma McBirney
would have wished them to do if she had been
there to advise them. They were not being just
— they were much, much better than just. They
were merciful. Annie Laurie went on:

"I don't know how much money there is
there, sir," she said, pointing to the pile of bills
on the table, "but I am sure there is a good deal
and that you have given me back all you took."

"All but two hundred dollars, miss. I gave
Sam a hundred, and I used a hundred myself.
I'll pay it back some day, if I can."

"What I was going to say was that I want
you to count out a thousand dollars of that money
for yourself. I'm not going to lend it to you.
I don't want you to go on thinking you have a
debt like that. I know you've had a hard time,
Mr. Disbrow. Father used to speak of it and
feel sorry; and I've felt dreadfully sorry for
you times and times. Now, you're to take a
thousand and just pretend, if you like, that my
father willed it to you, and then you're to go

270 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

away where you can begin over with a little
shop, or farm, and make your way."

Pretend that Simeon Pace had willed it to
him — Simeon Pace whom he had hated because
Pace was a successful man and he an unsuccess-
ful one! And Pace had felt sorry for himl But
if that was the case, why hadn't he helped him?
Yet Hector Disbrow knew why — he knew it was
because of his lazy ways and his bitter tongue,
and for the first time in his life he saw himself
as his neighbors had seen him, as a hang-dog
man whom it was anything but pleasant to meet.
Yes, he had missed the road, someway. He
hadn't known how to find the House of Good
Will. He had broken his wife's spirit, and had
darkened the lives of the two children who lived
beneath his roof. He had made a failure of
everything — had even sunk to be a thief. And
now here was this girl giving him another
chance. And Sam was saying that he'd still be
his son!

He was cold and hungry, worn with sleepless-
ness, shaken with the memory of the terrible
voice that had cried in the mist, and this unex-
pected kindness was too much for him. He had
not meant to do it — did not know that he ever

GOOD FOR EVIL 271

could do such a thing — but he burst into the
sobs of a broken man, and when Sam had led
him to a chair he dropped his head on the table
and wept.

They talked together, the four of them, when
Mr. Disbrow had grown calmer. Azalea would
have left them, but Annie Laurie wanted her
to stay. She held her hand and kept her close
beside her.

"You understand everything, Azalea," she
whispered. "You don't seem surprised at good
times or at bad times, dear. You take things as
they come. Stay with me, Azalea, I need you
very much."

"What will you do, miss?" Disbrow had asked.
"Will you let the people know how you got your
money back?"

Annie Laurie thought a moment.

"Don't you think they have been suspecting
you, Mr. Disbrow?" she asked.

The man nodded miserably.

"There wa'n't a man in town would shake
hands with me," he confessed.

"And don't you think," went on the girl, "that
they thought it fine of Sam to give up his school

272 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

and to come back here and help out the aunts
and myself?"

"They must have thought he was trying to
give a square deal," said Disbrow.

"Well, then," Annie Laurie went on, holding
tight to Azalea's hand to gather courage, "I
think I ought to tell them. It will let them
know you were honest in your heart after all,
and it will make them give Sam credit for what
he's done. I'm sure that's the right way, Mr.
Disbrow. When I was naughty I used to like
to be punished — it made me feel fair and honest
again. And you'll feel better if the neighbors
know. That will be your punishment. And
what's more, it will explain everything. I don't
want to have to tell a lie when I say how I got
my money back. I never yet told a lie and I
don't want to begin now."

The man bowed his head and sat staring into
the fire.

"I reckon what you say Is right," he admitted.

Azalea had placed a heaping plate of food
before him. She made hot cofifee and urged him
to drink it. And she found a pouch of tobacco
and forced that on him. His clothes had dried

GOOD FOR EVIL 273

before the hearty fire, and when he had lighted
his pipe he began to feel master of himself again.

"I think, dad," said Sam, ''that the best thing
for you to do is to get out of here to-night before
you're seen. I've some heavy new boots that
you can wear and you can have my raincoat and
sou'wester. That's my advice — hit the trail to-
night and get so far out of the way that none of
your old neighbors will meet you. Settle in some
live town over the mountain; put mother in a
nice, light, little house — and whatever you do,
don't have green shades to the windows — and
maybe she'll get well again."

"She's better now," said Mr. Disbrow. "Fifty
percent better. But of course she looks with
contempt on me. I don't know whether she'll
let me go back to her or not, Sam."

"Mother!" cried Sam. "Of course she will!
You go back and don't take no for an answer.
You-all just hike over the mountain to a new
place and get a new start all 'round. And one
of the first things is to get Hannah's eyes
straightened. She can't enjoy herself the way
she is. It just spoils her life."

"Yes, it does, Mr. Disbrow," put in Azalea.

274 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"It makes her so shy that it's terrible for her.
Do say you'll have her eyes made right."

Disbrow looked up at Azalea with something
almost like a smile. She was bending forward
pleading with him, her own odd, intense look
on her face. She did indeed seem to have a way
of understanding the troubles of people.

"I'll do it, miss," he said, "and I'll tell Han-
nah you-all told me to."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then
Mr. Disbrow turned his eyes on Sam and a deep
flush spread over his face.

"It's all right for you to say you'll stand by
me, son," he said, "but if I go sneakin' off and
hidin' away, how am I going to be able to stand
by you? What will 'come of you, anyway?"

"Now don't worry about me, sir," Sam said
independently; "I'll get on somehow."

"Oh, it's going to be easy for Sam," Annie
Laurie broke in enthusiastically. "You see it's
this way. Now I have my money I'll be able to
pay for all the work he's been doing for me, and
he'll keep right on working and saving up his
money, and next October he'll go back to the
Rutherford Academy. It's not so far away but
that he can afford to run down here every week

GOOD FOR EVIL 275

or two to go over the books, and he'll get some
good man in to take his place while he's away.
Vacations, he can take charge himself. Oh,
we'll get on now, Mr. Disbrow, both Sam and
I, and we'll have plenty of schooling too."

Hector Disbrow looked at the tall boy sitting
beside him and at the bright-faced girl who had
spoken, and started to say something, but
thought better of it and put his hand up to his
mouth instead.

"Oh, yes," he heard Azalea murmur.
"They'll get on now. Things are coming all
right for them just as they have for me. There's
an end to trouble, isn't there, if you just hang on
and wait?"

"Well, there is, miss," agreed Mr. Disbrow.
"And now I reckon I better take the advice you
all gave me and hike."

"Are you going to walk, sir?" Sam asked.

"No, I've got one of the horses hid back here
a ways. I'll slip on him and get up the moun-
tain before daybreak. Your ma and Hannah
will be worrying about me, I reckon. Ma's
down on me, but that won't keep her from wor-
rying about me, you know.'*

Sam nodded.

276 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

"They're sleeping in a little tent I rigged up
for them — kind of half house, half tent. Durn
it, I wish I could buy something to take to 'em.
The food supply's getting mighty low."

"Have you saddle bags on your horse, Mr.
Disbrow?" Annie Laurie asked.

"I reckon," said Disbrow dryly, ashamed to
test her generosity further.

"Then drive up to the storehouse door and
we'll be out with a lantern. I've enough food
to feed a little army and you-all mustn't go
hungry while that's the case."

He avoided her look as he thanked her.
Was she going to remember her offer to him of
a thousand dollars? She surely was.

"Azalea," she said, "count out the money I
promised Mr. Disbrow."

Azalea turned to the table where the fascinat-
ing rolls lay. There was indeed, much of it.
Most of the bills were of the hundred dollar
denomination. None of the children had seen
anything like it — it was like looking into Alad-
din's cave to stand there beside that old table
with rolls of bank notes. Perhaps each one of
the young persons wished that it had been in
gold instead of paper money, but even as it was

GOOD FOR EVIL 277

it thrilled them. Azalea's fingers trembled, as
slowly and accurately she counted out the ten
one hundred-dollar bills and handed them to
Annie Laurie, who in turn gave them to Mr.
Disbrow. He would have liked, in the shamed
soul of him, to make some sort of a joke of it,
but he could not and the cheap words he tried
to speak died on his lips.

''Thank you — thank you," was all he said.

''It's not because you brought back my
money," Annie Laurie added, with something
of the stern accent of her Aunt Adnah; "it's be-
cause you're an old neighbor, as I said, and
because I've known you ever since I was a little
girl and I have seen that things were hard for
you. Most of all, it's because Sam would like
me to do it. That's so, isn't it, Sam; you like me
to do it?"

"Oh, Annie Laurie," Sam cried, choking, "I
like you to do it."

He lifted the old coat from the chair and
helped his father into it, but it was soaking wet
and he flung it down again.

"Wait," he said; "I'll be back with the dry
things in a minute."

So in the new, dry boots, a reefer, raincoat and

278 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

storm hat — fed, warmed, forgiven, the man who
had so failed went out from Annie Laurie's door.

"We'll be waiting at the storehouse for you,"
she called after him. And half an hour later,
with his saddle bags well filled, he was ofi up
the mountain, never to come into their lives
again.

"Come back by the fire," pleaded Azalea.
"Come, Sam, come back and get warm before
you go to bed."

"I don't see how it can be so chilly again after
all the lovely days we've had," Annie Laurie
remarked. She was deeply moved and glad of
the opportunity to talk about something besides
the man who had just ridden away from them.

So the three went in and sat before the fire.

"Oh, Sam," said Azalea, "you didn't ask Mr.
Disbrow who your father really was."

"I don't suppose he knew," Sam said, "and
I'm not sure I want to." He dropped his head
in his hands and sat staring at the dying fire.

"Oh, well," Annie Laurie said, "America's
for individuals. That's what Mr. Summers says
and that's what I think too. And as an individ-
ual, Sam, you'll pass muster, eh?"

Sam laughed rather bitterly.

GOOD FOR EVIL 279

"Oh," he half groaned, "I wish—"

"What?" asked Azalea.

"Oh, I don't know what. I was just thinking
what a queer, lonely trio we are — orphans, the
three of us."

"Yes," said the girls, "that's so."

They sat for a time in silence, each absorbed
in thought. The fire crackled a little now and
then, and sank lower and lower. By and by
Annie Laurie spoke softly —

"Yes," she said, "we're orphans, but I reckon
we'll be taken care of."

"Oh, yes," murmured Azalea's soft voice.
"I'm sure of it. Why Ma McBirney— "

"The rest of us have no Ma McBirney," Sam
reminded her.

But after all, though they were pensive, they
were not unhappy. The feeling that they were
close and trusted friends comforted them.
High adventure seemed to be before them. The
fortune, so curiously lost and so strangely re-
gained lay there on the table by them. Sam and
Azalea wondered that Annie Laurie did not
count it to find out how much it was, but she
seemed oddly indifferent to that fact. Only

28o ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

after a time she arose, brushed the bills into her
apron and stood for a moment smiling.

"Sam," she said shyly, "creep up to the attic,
softly, so as not to disturb the aunts, and bring
me down dad's old tin arm!"

"Oh!" cried Sam, horrified.

"Please," begged the girl.

So Sam brought it and the three laid the rolls
of bills neatly within it.

"It will comfort father," said Annie Laurie
quaintly, "but to-morrow I'm going to put it in
the bank."

CHAPTER XVII

azalea's party

Baby Jonathan had just been stung by one of
Pa McBirney's bees.

"I don't like the way he kisseth," he screamed,
standing beside the clump of golden glow. "I
don't like it a bit."

"I should think not, indeed, mamma's own
honey-bird," soothed Mrs. Barbara, dashing for
him and gathering him into her arms. "He
thought you were a flower, son-son, and just
lighted on you."

"He kisseth too hard," sobbed Jonathan,
plunging his golden head into the hollow of his
mother's arm. "I don't want to play with him
any more, ever."

"What a shame that he should be stung at his
first party," said his mother indignantly, as she
carried him to the seat at the McBirney outlook
where she had been sitting with young Richard
Heller, Sam Disbrow's friend — the one who had

spoken the cruel-kind words of truth to him

281

282 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

which had sent him away from the Rutherford
Academy without so much as putting his name
on the register. They had been talking about
Sam now, and when Mrs. Summers had plas-
tered clay over the wounded cheek of her son,
and had soothed him with many kisses, they re-
sumed their conversation.

"It's going to come all right with him next
term," Dick said to Mrs. Summers. "All the
fellows in the country who know him at all real-
ize what a brick he's been, staying right here
and looking his trouble in the face and helping
the Paces out the way he did. Why, some of
the men wanted him to change his name when
it turned out that Disbrow was such a thief, but
he wouldn't do it. He said he'd promised his
dad — he will call him that — to stick to him, and
that it wouldn't be keeping his word to take
another name. He said Disbrow was as good
a name as any if he made it good. So he'll be
given a hearty reception when he comes back to
Rutherford. I've frozen onto the room next to
mine there at the Ballenger dormitories and I'm
going to get the prefect to put him in there. The
fellows shall see that he and I are friends, any-
way. I don't know as that counts for such a

AZALEA'S PARTY 283

tremendous lot, but I'll let it stand for all it
will."

"Bless you," said Mrs. Summers, turning her
bright smile on the lad. "I can't tell you what
it means to me that my Sam is going to be happy.
As you know, he's been living with us the past
few months, and never, never did I see a boy who
tried harder to do what was right. But, dear me,
that isn't all. I've known good folk who almost
wore me out. But Sam is charming. Now that
he's happy once more he's the very life of the
place, and that's saying a good deal of a house
where my husband lives. Besides, Jonathan
rather keeps things going. Altogether, I sup-
pose we're the noisest and the happiest lot in
Lee."

"I dare say you are," smiled the youth admir-
ingly. "I know Sam's a wonder at keeping
things humming. He's been like that from the
time he was a little boy, and I never could make
out how such a live one could belong to a sour,
down-in-the-mouth family like the Disbrows.
It was quite a relief to me when I found he
Vi^asn't really related to them after all, but had
just been dropped in the nest, so to speak."

"It was a relief to everyone who cared for

284 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

him, I imagine," Mrs. Summers said. "But am
I not keeping you here, Dick, away from the
young people?"

"I wouldn't stay here if I didn't want to, Mrs.
Summers," Dick replied gallantly. "You see I
don't know these girls very well, but Sam
wanted me to come up with him, and Azalea
was good enough to say she'd love to have me,
so of course I came. I've often ridden by the
McBirneys and thought what a delightful little
place it was, but I didn't suppose I'd ever be
coming to a birthday party here."

"Well, naturally you wouldn't have supposed
it. There are you in your fine, handsome home,
the banker's son, all of your paths running in a
different direction from those of the McBirneys,
yet I doubt if ever in your life you visited a
house where there was more real courtesy and
hospitality than there is here."

"Oh, I'm sure of that, Mrs. Summers. And
then Azalea — isn't she a wonder? She fasci-
nates everybody. As my mother was saying this
morning, if ever there was a girl who would
make you forget all about social distinction and
just join in on a happy human basis to have a
good time — all hands 'round — that person is

AZALEA'S PARTY 285

Azalea. Of course, as mother reminded me,
Azalea came from as cultivated a family as ever
lived in this district, although she is now to all
intents the daughter of these mountain people."

"It's a privilege," said Barbara Summers, "to
live with Mrs. McBirney, and anyone who has
the sense to get the most out of it will grow up
to be good and patient and wise."

Perhaps these virtues were not the ones which
most appealed to Dick Heller at that period of
his life, but however that may be, he could not
keep his eyes off the mountain girl. He could
see her in her white, hand-wrought frock, her
hair blown about her dark face, flashing here
and there with her friends. He saw her run to
serve some one who was merely driving along
the road — for the road over Tennyson Mountain
to Lee ran quite through the McBirney yard,
as has been said before. It was evident that the
McBirney's were asking everyone who passed
to congratulate them on their adopted daugh-
ter's fifteenth birthday, and in return they were
served with the drink of sweetened limes and
the honey cake which Ma McBirney had pre-
pared for the occasion.

And there was Pa McBirney In his white

286 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

linen clothes — they had been his father's — talk-
ing with Mr. Carson, in his smart white flannels ;
and Miss Adnah and Miss Zillah in new figured
lawns, carrying their old fringed parasols
bought years before on a great occasion at
Charleston; and near them was Mrs. Kitchell
with the younger children, brown and strong,
and quite in the spirit of the occasion; and Hi
and Jim were putting boards on saw horses,
ready for the feast; and Carin and Annie Laurie
were running down the road to welcome some
freshly arrived guests.

"I say," boomed the great voice of the Rev-
erend Absalom Summers, '^there never was an-
other spot like this one! Now, was there ever,
anywhere? When I get up here I feel just like
a boy, I'm so happy — why, I'm just silly with
happiness. I like the way the grass smells, and
the road winds, and the spring gushes, and the
flowers blossom, and the clouds sail, and the
valley lies, and Mrs. McBirney cooks, and Mr.
McBirney tells stories, and Jim whistles, and
I'll be plagued if I don't like everything about

it."

"Well, be calm, Absalom dear," smiled his

AZALEA'S PARTY 287

wife. "You don't have to hoot like an owl be-
cause you're happy."

"You know how to stop the hooting of an
owl?" demanded the irrepressible man of the
company in general. "You just stand it as long
as you can without swearing and then you take
off your right slipper and put it on your left
foot and the owl will stop. I've tried it dozens
of times — and the owl always stopped."

"Git along!" called a voice from somewhere
up among the trees. "That way don't compare
with my way."

"Who is that challenging me?" roared Mr.
Summers. But he had no need to ask. It was
Haystack Thompson who was dropping down
on them from somewhere up in the mountain,
and who of course had his fiddle under his arm.
For to go to a party without a fiddle was some-
thing of which Mr. Thompson never yet had
been guilty.

"What's your receipt for stopping a hootin'
owl, Mr. Bones?" demanded Mr. Summers.

"Why," answered Haystack seriously, "you
jest heat a poker white hot and wave it in the
air three times and they'll stop clean off."

Absalom Summers shook his great fist under

288 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

Haystack's nose — "What's the use in trying to
force a fool superstition like that down our
throats, Thompson?" he roared. "Changing
slippers is the only up-to-date, scientific way and
Heller here, who's been to school, can tell you
so."

But Haystack refused to yield an inch. A
heated poker was the thing for him, he said.

"A fiddle's the thing for you, Mr. Thomp-
son," cried Mrs. Carson. "I don't believe you
know how to handle anything else — not even a
porridge spoon."

Indeed, unconsciously, the old man had been
taking the covering from the instrument.

"That's right, that's right," Thomas McBir-
ney said. "Tune up, old friend. Then we'll
know that it's a party for sure."

And tune up he did. At first it seemed only
to be tuning, and they couldn't tell where he
left ofif getting ready and when he began to play.
But by and by there were odd little sounds
that might have been squirrels chittering, or
birds stirring in their nests. Then they grew
sweeter and more liquid and seemed like water
running over stones and wind singing in the
trees. And by and by the whistle of a robin

AZALEA'S PARTY 289

broke in and then a thrush sang his soul out at
the gates of Heaven; then the night seemed to
be falling, kindly, as if it would give rest to all
the weary. After that it was black for a mo-
ment or two, as if a storm was gathering. There
seemed to be distant sounds of thunder. But it
passed quickly as some nights do, if one is, for
example, fifteen, and then the dawn came over
the hills, dancing. There must have been blithe
maidens ushering it in — for who else would have
had such light and lilting feet? Yes, they were
dancing down over the hills, scattering flowers,
and the birds were perched upon their shoulders
and rosy clouds were wreathing them.

At least that was the lovely picture that Hay-
stack Thompson's music brought to Barbara
Summers as she sat holding her little son, and
then the next thing she knew all of her friends
really were dancing. Ma McBirney was danc-
ing with Mr. Carson, and Pa McBirney had
Annie Laurie for a partner, and Sam had Aza-
lea, and Carin was with Dick Heller, and Jim
was footing it with Hi's little sister, and Hi and
his mother were making a show of hopping
around.

Only Absalom Summers wasn't dancing, be-

290 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

cause he was the Methodist minister and didn't
believe in it — at least he said he didn't. He sat
beating juba with his great hands, making a ter-
rific rhythmical accompaniment and crying:

"That's it — keep it up — go right along on the
road to destruction — keep it up there, McBir-
ney — I'm here to see you through." He threw
back his head with its tossed straight hair and
gave vent to a roar of laughter.

"You're a comfortable preacher to have
around," declared Mr. Carson, stopping to catch
his breath.

"Comfortable!" roared Mr. Summers, giving
a twist to Mr. Carson's meaning. "I never was
so comfortable in my life."

Miss Adnah and Miss Zillah were helping
Ma McBirney to set the table now, and the
young people were dashing about on errands,
and more friends were coming, some from over
the mountains and some up from town, and by
and by they all sat down to the table and ate
together. There was fried chicken, and rice
cooked with cheese, and beaten biscuit, and
golden butter in little pats, and cooling drinks
of lime and orange and mint, and cakes — three
kinds — and ice cream which the Carson's had

AZALEA'S PARTY 291

brought up in great freezers. It is necessary to
tell what there was to eat, because eating is a
very important part of a party.

And then there were the gifts to see. Almost
everyone had brought a gift. Even some of the
people who were passing and who had not
known there was to be a party at all, and who
perhaps did not know the McBirneys very well,
had fished out something from their wagons for
the orphan girl who had made so many people
love her.

So there was the little gold watch from Mrs.-
Carson, and the ivory toilet set from Carin, a
set of Tennyson from Mr. Carson, and a hand-
made petticoat from Annie Laurie, and some
old eardrops of pink coral made into a brooch
by Miss Adnah, and a knitted shoulder shawl
from Miss Zillah, and a kind of zither thing that
Sam had made himself, and a box of sweets from
Dick Heller, and — are you out of breath? Be-
cause there are ever so many more things.
There was a rag rug, beautifully woven, from
Mrs. Kitchell, and a whisk broom holder from
Hi, and a wonderful melon-shaped basket, fine
and delicate, from Haystack Thompson, who
knew more than most about weaving baskets, and

292 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

there was a white parasol from Ma McBirney —
who never could afford a parasol for herself —
and a new riding whip from Pa McBirney, and
from Jim a new curry comb which he said he
would use when he curried Paprika, the pony.
And then other people, about whom you know
nothing, brought their contributions. Every-
thing was laid out in that pleasant, open cham-
ber, which it will be remembered divided the
McBirney house in two.

The people who came to this party weren't
the sort whose singing is ruined by something
good to eat. After the dishes had been cleared
away they sat where they could look off at the
valley as the shadows began to stretch long and
purple down from the ridges.

And then everyone regretfully realized that
it was time to go home. So there was a great
mounting of horses and piling into wagons, and
Jim and Hi held stirrups and helped ladies into
the high mountain wagons — the sort you can
turn the wheel under if you have to make a short
curve — and presently they were all off and away.

Azalea, all in her pretty white, slipped on
Paprika's back and rode for a way with her
guests. But at the first turn she shouted her

AZALEA'S PARTY 293

good-byes to them and turned back up the
mountain. It was getting to be dusky now even
along her high path, and the coolness of the
evening was settling about her. It was a fra-
grant dusk, for the summer was at its height and
sent out a thousand pleasant perfumes. She
brought her pony to a halt as she reached the
top of the ridge, and waited for a moment to let
herself sink fairly into the place and the hour.
The trees, whispering in her ear, seemed her
close friends; the night was like a protectress;
the little sleeping creatures in the trees and the
holes of the ground seemed close and kind.

For once that eager nature of hers, which
asked for so full a measure of joy and delight,
was satisfied. She spoke a word to her little
mare, which began picking out the road again
with her sure feet. As Paprika drew near the
house she whinnied, and Azalea laughingly imi-
tated her.

"Send her along, sis," shouted Jim from some-
where in the gloom. "I'll put her up."

"Thanks," called back Azalea. She slipped
from her saddle and ran into the lighted room.
Pa McBirney was smoking, Ma McBirney was
still busy putting thing to rights. Azalea gave

294 ANNIE LAURIE AND AZALEA

her a gentle push which sent her into her own
deep-armed rocker.

"Daughter will do the rest," she said.

"Oh, my dear," protested Mary McBirney,
"aren't you tired? You've been going like a
streak all day."

"Yes, but I didn't begin before sunup the
way you did, mother. My, my, what a happy
day it's been! What a happy day! And a little
more than a year ago — " she could not go on.

All three were silent, thinking of the changes
a year had brought. Azalea had remembered
that morning to trim with flowers the graves
beneath the Pride of India tree, so that they
would, in their way, be included in the festival.
For Ma McBirney had taught her how love can
live on though death comes between, and how
sorrow can be turned into sweetness.

That seemed to be the secret of the whole
thing anyway — turning sorrow into sweetness.

Finally Azalea spoke again. She had just
set the best dishes in their place and folded up
the table cover.

"And the girls," she said musingly, "they've
come to me too, this year — Carin and Annie
Laurie. Dear me, but we do have fun!"

AZALEA'S PARTY 295

"Yes," responded Ma McBirney sympathet-
ically, "I never did see three girls have a better
understanding of each other, or ones who
enjoyed each other's society more. What is it
Mrs. Carson calls it?"

"The Triple Alliance," smiled Azalea. "And
now, since it's all right about Annie Laurie's
money, I really and truly do think we're the
happiest girls in the world."

THE END

Books for Older Children byL. Frank Baum

The Daring Twins Series

By L. FRANK BAUM

TN writing "The Daring
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The Aunt Jane's Nieces

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EIGHT TITLES

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Aunt Janets Nieces Abroad
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
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Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John
Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation
Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch

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